This startup helps youths stay away from bad company and run awesome events instead

Young people today are worse off today than their parents were. This statement might sound ironic given the relative affluence that our generation has been born into, but the saying that money doesn’t buy happiness rings true here – especially when, thanks to inflation, everything is getting more expensive.

A quick glance at the newspaper says it all. The Star Online recently reported that over the last seven years in Malaysia, a total of 1,940 youths under the age of 25 have been declared bankrupt, a third of whom became bankrupt in the first half of this year. In the same vein, the rate of juvenile crime has also shot up by 57 percent in 2013, which saw 1,632 cases among young criminals as compared to 1,042 cases in 2012, according to Malaysian Digest.

Jazz Tan knows full well what this sort of lifestyle can do to the lives of the youth. Her own father was a victim of unhealthy activities – engaging in gangsterism and drugs – and passed away ten years ago when Tan was just 14 years old. Since then, she’s made it her personal mission to move young people off the streets. She founded YouthsToday, an online platform for projects spearheaded by youths, for that express purpose in 2013.

“I identified a problem in this industry, particularly in Malaysia – there’s a gap between brands and young people,” recalls Tan. “When young people organize events, they always face problems in finding funding, resources, and mentorship.”

Brand mileage

Now, Malaysia-based YouthsToday works with several government agencies and multinational corporations who target the younger crowd – such as Maybank, AirAsia, and Sony – to get their support for youth-run projects in the areas of entrepreneurship, technology, and the creative arts. In return, these clients receive significant brand mileage in the respective events – a Sony-supported Korean-pop dance competition that was held last year, for example, received almost a million pageviews.

Here’s how it works. “Funds from our clients are disbursed in small sums for the youths to run branded projects in their respective colleges and universities – all run by youth for youth,” explains Tan. “So the clients help our youth to develop, while at the same time getting their brand name spread among the youth as well.”

The younger and tech savvier generation tends to share about the events they attend on social media channels a lot – surprise, surprise – and YouthsToday also does its part by bringing on media partners to provide coverage. Brands can expect to get plenty of exposure.

As an added bonus, youths who volunteer for, participate in, or attend YouthsToday events also receive points that they can exchange for rewards on the website. This way, its events are able to reach out to a wide group of young people, connecting them with the brands involved and fulfilling Tan’s mission to keep them off the streets. Two birds, one stone.

To Tan, it just makes sense dollar-wise. “We always advise our clients, instead of pumping in hundreds and thousands of dollars in billboards and advertisements, why not park your money with us, get the same mileage as you would have otherwise, and do good at the same time?”

Small to massive projects

National-scale projects, such as the aforementioned Sony KPOP Dance Showdown, require the joint efforts of youths from multiple schools to organize. With just a small team of 10, I wondered how YouthsToday was able to coordinate and rally young people from roughly 50 universities and colleges that they are affiliated with.

Simply put, there’s a system in place to cope with that. “We work closely with youth ambassadors who sign up with us, our ambassadors reach out to the presidents of clubs and societies in these schools, who then reach out to the students themselves. This way, it doesn’t strain our manpower,” explains Tan.

Self-sustainable