The Pochologist Inspires Delegates of the ASEAN Young Entrepreneurs Challenge in Malaysia

On April 4, Filipino motivational speaker Pocholo “The VoiceMaster” Gonzales was the main speaker for the ASEAN Young Entrepreneurs Challenge 2017, held at the National University of Malaysia in Selangor, Malaysia. Twenty-two teams from 14 universities of 7 ASEAN countries participated in the 10-day challenge, which included various activities including workshops, tours, and pitching competitions.

Pocholo’s talk centered around the future of youth entrepreneurship, with a focus on building passion-driven businesses. He started his presentation by sharing his own entrepreneurial journey as a young voice artist, who eventually built not only his own voiceover company but also the first and only voice acting school in the Philippines. He shared with the audience how his vision to make the Philippines the center of voiceover excellence in Asia enabled him to overcome the challenges he faced as a young entrepreneur.

Pocholo also gave the audience a background of the voice acting industry. He even amazed the audience with his voice acting talent, by doing an ensemble of character voices. He also spoke about his first-hand experience on the politics and monopoly surrounding in the business, and how his voice acting school revolutionized the industry by opening the doors to more aspiring voice artists.

Pocholo’s story became the perfect transition to his main topic of building a passion-driven business. Pocholo is a perfect example of how building a business based on one’s passion and skills are the most sustainable way to become an entrepreneur. His inspiring entrepreneurial journey earned him a Go Negosyo award in 2009, and later on, became one of their Angelpreneurs. He challenged the participants to go beyond building a business for profit and to build a business for meaning.

Pocholo spent a few minutes to conduct a mini-workshop to help the participants identify their own passion-driven business. Through a series of activities, he helped the students narrow down their interests and choose the talent or skill that they love to do and would want to be their legacy. He then gave the students practical ways on how they can build their business, and also let the students come up with 3 actionable steps so that they can immediately start their passion-driven business.

The universities represented in the AYE Challenge include Universiti Utara in Malaysia, Universitas Pelita Harapan in Indonesia, Mahasarakham University in Thailand, the Yangon University of Education in Myanmar, University of EConomics and Business in Vietnam, and Tarlac University of Agriculture in the Philippines. The winner of the challenge will receive a total prize of RM 22,000.