Parents should start talking to their kids about money and entrepreneurship as early as possible, says U V Wong, director of MoneyTree Malaysia Sdn Bhd, which offers financial literacy programmes to youths. “There is no age limit,” stresses Wong, who points out that many people mistake financial literacy as a topic reserved for adults or people who have already joined the workforce. “When kids see that their parents can buy them toys by just swiping their credit card, they grow up thinking that the credit card is some sort of magic card that allows them to get what they want,” notes Wong, who believes that parents should educate their children on the functions of the credit card, and the consequences of failing to use it responsibly. 

Wong was speaking to Personal Money at the soft launch of its Young Entrepreneur Startup (YES) Challenge at the Sime Darby Convention Centre. The YES Challenge aims to help aspiring entrepreneurs between the ages 17 and 24 to launch their business ideas into profitable ventures.
In the 15-week programme, the young entrepreneurs, who would be put into teams of three or four, would be required to come up with a commercially viable and scalable business idea. They would then have to present their business idea to a panel of judges and advisers. The judges would give the selected teams approval to solicit funding from a group of private investors, industrialists and venture capitalists.

Each team may only solicit a maximum of RM 25,000 for the pilot through the sales of shares of their business projects. At the end of the 15-week period, if a business makes profit or has the potential to do so in the near future, the team would be able to proceed to obtain the subsequent level of funding.
Since the challenge involves real money and investors, participants could walk away with a full-fledged business before they graduate from university or college.

The Grand Prize winner would receive RM20,000 in cash and prizes. Selected finalists of the YES Challenge would also be brought on road shows to participating universities and colleges.
Currently, the YES Challenge is only open to youths aged 17 to 24 years old in the Klang Valley but will be introduced to other parts of the country in subsequent phases. Participants must have at least Form Five education, be fluent in English and participated in the intensive one-day MoneyTree Entrepreneur Fast Track Program. The closing date for registration for the MoneyTree YES Challenge is June 30, 2009.