In a bid to equip aspiring youngsters with entrepreneurial skills, MoneyTree Sdn Bhd (MTSB) recently launched its Money Tree Young Entrepreneur Start-up (YES) challenge. A subsidiary of MoneyTree Asia Pacific Ltd, MTSB can offer its parents special financial training programme that educates children and youths aged 9 to 19 years. Students are groomed from learning basic money matters to investment tools and finally graduating to be entrepreneurs.

The MoneyTree YES challenge requires aspirants to come up with a business idea, submit their executive summaries to a panel of judges, and also implement those business ideas by soliciting funds from private investors.  If the teams' business ideas are commercially viable, they would be channeled to government funding to help bring their business to the next level.

MoneyTree chief executive officer, Brandon Liew, said in a statement that the YES challenge was started to create an entrepreneur infrastructure that would remove most obstacles, including funding, mentorship and lack of networking that an entrepreneur would face.

Liew said MoneyTree was working closely with organisations such as Cradle Investment Programme (CIP), Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) and others to make the programme viable.

He said so far 26 teams of students from institutions including Taylor's University College, Open University Malaysia, Nilai University College, Kolej IKIP, Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan University College, Tunku Abdul Rahman College, University Tunku Abdul Rahman, Universiti Putra Malaysia and Universiti Malaya (UM) had registered to participate in the challenge.

The closing date for the MoneyTree YES Challenge registration is June 30.