Meet the founding president of a national youth-building platform that reaches out to young people, the unconventional way.
The topic of education is a pet subject for debate—educators, parents and even politicians have their own opinions about nurturing their youth. But how often are the tables turned, to instead, get to know their habits and interests before striking the heart of the matter?
A youth himself at 32 years old, Dato’ Lawrence Low, the founding president of youth-building platform MyPerintis, sheds new light on the matter with his understanding and perception of the young.
Two years ago, Dato’ Lawrence identified a gap – GST, for one, had been introduced but awareness campaigns were very segmented and mostly aimed at companies. Youths pay GST too, so what about them?
Dato’ Lawrence threw himself into the youth works organisation, and launched his first leadership program ‘What Malaysian Youths Should Know’ at MaGic in April 2015. It then fireballed into more programs like Youth Trailblazers Challenge, the Unconventional Financial Literacy, WMYSK Road Safety Training for Youth, and so on.
Since then, MyPerintis has engaged more than 12,000 youths across the country. We got to know the spirited plans brewing within Dato’ Lawrence’s on his progressive ways to reach out and educate young people.
The school of hard knocks
Dato' Lawrence was 26 when I took up a master franchise for Taiwanese dessert brand ZenQ. He and his team opened 12 outlets in a year but due to a dispute and a potentially long legal battle, they let it go and opened their own dessert brand, Sweet Day.
"At the end of the day, I learned that the F&B line is a passion but not my forte. I didn’t have much advisory or investment support from my parents, so it was a lot about me finding my passion and ‘banging walls’ while finding my way."