Your Big Year

Global Finals: All Week | Liverpool, UK

Your Big Year is a competition with an engaging and simple structure as well as an incredible life-changing prize—a trip around the world working on projects and meeting global and community leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs. Twelve finalists will be flown to the great City of Liverpool, UK where they will compete in a series of filmed challenges during the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in March 2012. The competition will link entrepreneurial spirit to global citizenship and in 2010, almost 45,000 people entered from 168 countries. Previous winners Carielle Doe from New York (US), and Michael Teoh from Penang (Malaysia) have experienced a wide variety of cultures in their ambassadorial roles. They have also met leaders like Sir Terry Leahy (Tesco), His Grace The Duke of Westminster (Grosvenor) and Tony Fernandes (Air Asia), amongst many other business and political luminaries. Perhaps more important has been the first hand experience gained of issues around the world and of the local community leaders being entrepreneurial to make a difference.

Jonathan Ortmans, president of Global Entrepreneurship Week, said of the competition, “We are proud that this fantastic international competition is one of Global Entrepreneurship Week’s featured activities and believe it will again bring many people from many backgrounds to the theme of entrepreneurship and the positive impact it invariably has.” Chris Arnold, CEO of Smaller Earth - the enterprise behind Your Big Year - emphasized the wider value of the competition, saying, “Showing that you are motivated and determined is crucial to success in any venture, this competition gets increasingly more challenging and ends leaving people with the confidence to work with the world.”

For more information, go to www.yourbigyear.com.