Making a difference

"Every entrepreneur needs a network to succeed," says Hyl. "When entering a new market an entrepreneur usually lacks access to contacts. The Power of Youth connects its members to a new and much valuable network in China and elsewhere."

On the Chinese side, one of the early supporters of the initiative is Rao Jin, a co-founder of social media website Renren. Purvis is particularly excited by the ideas that could come out of bringing together entrepreneurs like Hyl with large-scale investors in China.

"We've had a look at the candidates the Chinese are putting up for us and they are spectacular. There are some really big names coming forward from the Chinese side. It looks like there are a couple of Chinese entrepreneurs coming forward who are billionaires."

The Power of Youth has already secured support from the European Commission, the British Council and Tianjin's local government to turn any ideas that come out of the conference into reality. The Tianjin local government has pledged 5 square kilometers of land in the city on which to site collaborative businesses. The Commission will provide flight tickets to China for each of the 27 European entrepreneurs.

In return both the Commission and Chinese government hope not only to inspire a new generation of Sino-European entrepreneurs, but also to receive feedback from top young business people on key issues affecting both the EU and China, including the energy crisis, urbanization and the repercussions of an ageing population.

"We want to develop policy that will be useful to those who are at the leading edge of the economy in both China and the EU. We are going to host a problem solving session in Tianjin where people present their solutions to these problems. Eventually we hope to be presenting these findings to senior Chinese and European officials who will be writing policy."

The results of the conference will also be distilled in a series of short videos and online presentations, creating a resource for other young people who want to turn their ideas into businesses.

"What we're also going to do is take their business acumen, the know-how of making businesses work, and we're going to crunch that into two minute infographics aimed at the attention deficit generation. Young people want this information quickly," says Purvis.

With the application process for entrepreneurs ongoing, Purvis is keen to stress that the door is still open for successful business people to get involved with the Power of Youth.

"I'm of the opinion that if you buy into our network, we can improve a global economy that is hideously inefficient. It can be far more dynamic and far more socially conscious. Power of Youth alumni - from Europe, China and across the world - will generally believe we can make the world a better place if we are more socially conscious."