From left: Chak Shui Hang, a volunteer at Youth Business Hong Kong, Au Cheuk Wing, co-founder of Conduct Chinese Medicine Clinic, Yu Naibo, president of HowLang, and Du Kui, executive president of Youth Business China. Cecily Liu / China Daily

Today's award-winning entrepreneurs thank older hands for their success

An old pedicab driver and a former professor stricken with cancer, each of whom donated their life savings to help students - these are the people who inspired this year's young Entrepreneur of the Year and the reasons why he chose the education business.

Having interned at half a dozen multinationals including Google, IBM and Hewlett-Packard during his university years, Yu Naibo, 27, realized only entrepreneurship could fulfill his ambitions.

"I don't suit a job with regular work hours," Yu says. "I don't suit a lifestyle where I follow the rules made by others. I think the world wants some people to create things, and I think I'm one such person."

As soon as he graduated in 2008, he established HowLang, a company that has grown to employ 200 people and generate a turnover of $20 million (15 million euros) a year.

HowLang produces a range of cloud-computing software tools for electronic communication between teachers, students and parents.

"In a Chinese classroom, one teacher often needs to look after up to 60 students," Yu says, explaining the sort of challenges his products are designed to meet. "The students and parents compete to attract the teacher's attention, but the teacher doesn't have the energy to attend to each student in person."

The success of the enterprise led to Yu being awarded this year's Entrepreneur of the Year by Youth Business International, a global network of non-profit organizations that helps young people start up in business.

Founded in 2000 in the UK, the organization became a part of the Prince of Wales' Charitable Foundation, and has launched operations in 35 countries and regions and helped more than 60,000 people start their businesses.

Youth Business China was established in 2003 to provide funding and advice to young Chinese entrepreneurs, and is supported by volunteers, mainly from China's professional services industry.

Two out of this year's three finalists for the award are from China, with the third from Israel.

"China's new generation of entrepreneurs is different from the old generation, who started businesses often because they had problem surviving. They had no choice," says Du Kui, YBC's executive president.

Many of the older-generation entrepreneurs also lacked formal education that today's young entrepreneurs take for granted.

For instance, Gao Dekang, founder of China's largest down-clothing brand Bosideng, only completed intermediate school studies, and Qiu Jibao, founder of China's largest sewing machine company, Feiyue Group, left school to repair shoes at the age of 14.

In comparison, China's young entrepreneurs are highly educated, many with international experience. With much less financial worries than their predecessors, their ambition is to make a difference.

"China's new generation of entrepreneurs wants to create something new," Du says. "They have their own way of thinking and their own way of doing, because they want to change the lives of other people. Some of them even want to change the world."

Such a description certainly fits Yu. Despite possessing strong business skills, his decisions are also greatly influenced by his emotions.

"What initially motivated me to enter the education market is the story of two old people," he says.

The first, a public figure, is Bai Fang-li, a pedicab driver who donated a total of 350,000 yuan ($55,800; 43,100 euros) throughout his life to help more than 300 poor students continue their studies. He died in 2005, aged 93.

The second is an unsung heroine whom Yu looked up to in life.

"She was a professor at my university. When she retired in 1988, she was suffering from three different types of cancer, and the doctor told her that she would only live another year.

"She donated all her money to a local school, and did many things to help the children at that school. With such a strong determination for life, she lived on for another 20 years. I was a volunteer at that school, and I was deeply touched by her actions."

Inspired by such people, Yu decided he wanted to use his business skills to help China's education sector, but at first he did not know how. Then on return to his home city Hangzhou after graduation, a cousin told him there was a lack of technology being used in Chinese classrooms.

That gave him an idea, and joined by two university classmates, he set up HowLang.

"I didn't pay them any salary for the first six months. They ate with me and slept with me at my house," he says.

The three were joined by four more, and these make up HowLang's core management team. Some were Yu's high school and primary school classmates. "My team is the most important asset to my business," Yu says.

The older generation also greatly influenced the business idea of Au Cheuk Wing, 30, co-founder of Conduct Chinese Medicine Clinic in Hong Kong, and the other Chinese finalist in this year's YBI awards.

After graduating from Hong Kong Baptist University with a traditional Chinese medicine degree in 2005, Au worked at a TCM clinic, and soon realized there was a problem with how it was being run.

There were very few university-educated TCM practitioners at that time .

"Many older-generation practitioners did not receive university training, as they learnt their skills through apprenticeships, so their practice was not systematic," he says.

"With systematic learning, I was able to combine biomedical science knowledge with TCM to treat patients well. But most TCM practitioners are old, and they wouldn't listen to our suggestions.

"It lead me to think we had to do something to change the market, to give TCM a rebirth."

Au decided to set up his own clinic. As funding was difficult to obtain, Au saved for three years and obtained a loan from Youth Business Hong Kong to open his clinic in 2008. In three years, it has grown to include three treatment centers, and now employs 22 people.

Looking back, Au says the greatest challenge for him was to learn how to become an entrepreneur. Fortunately, Chak Shui Hang, a volunteer mentor from YBHK, helped him set targets, assess his progress and identify possible areas for improvement.

"I used a lot of my previous knowledge in the government sector to help him, including my understanding of the regulatory system concerning startups and how to become successful as a business in a volatile market," says Chak, who once worked in Hong Kong's government. Chak admits that despite Au's success, the general environment for young entrepreneurs in Hong Kong is "gloomy". Loans are difficult to obtain for new startups, and many graduates in Hong Kong also have the added burden of paying back education loans.

Du Kui of YBC says startups in China also face difficulty in obtaining loans. "Government funding and venture capital investment often go to high-tech businesses of a certain scale, but many small businesses run by young people still have problems accessing funding," he says.

Also, in China, more graduates still prefer the conventional route of finding a stable job, with the "first choice to work for the government" due to generous non-pecuniary benefits.

According to a report released in June by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and MyCOS Research Institute, a Beijing-based education consultancy, only 1.6 percent of Chinese university graduates started businesses last year, more or less the same as in the previous year.

But Du remains optimistic, as he believes the continual expansion of NGOs like YBC will improve China's entrepreneurship environment.

"The Chinese government wants to help startups but it doesn't have the resources to assess them all," he says. "We have lots of volunteers to assess them, and increasingly, the startups we have supported were able to get government loans. Hopefully this will continue."

cecily.liu@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 10/26/2012 page28)