UNDP organizes "Youth Co:Lab" in Bangkok

BANGKOK, March 27 (TNA) - Young competitors of nine countries in Asia and the Pacific, including those of Thailand, are participating in the Youth Co:Lab, jointly organized in Bangkok by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Citi Foundation during March 26-28. While inaugurating the three-day competition in the city on Monday, UNDP Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and Pacific Haoliang Xu, who is also UN Assistant Secretary General, said that about 25 per cent of youths in the Asian-Pacific region, aged 15-24 years old, are unemployed and UNDP has, thus, organized the Youth Co:Lab Project to be a competition platform for youngsters in the region to express their ideas on running new businesses and solving problems in the society. According to the UNDP regional director, the ideas raised by winning competitors are considered to be able to practically run as new businesses where jobs are created to become a solution to the unemployment problem. Meanwhile, a young Thai competitor, Thanakorn Promyos, told reporters that the Youth Co:Lab Project opens a floor for people in the younger generations to express and propose their ideas on running businesses which can help solve social problems in their respective countries. Youth teams of nine countries in Asia and the Pacific, including Thailand, China, the Philippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands are competing in the three-day Youth Co:Lab Project, which was first organized in 2017 in the nine countries and two other countries in the region, including Vietnam and Pakistan, to select the 21 winning teams of the nine countries to further compete in the ongoing project in the Thai capital. (TNA)