Driving change is never easy, but disruption and innovation was the reason why Good Life X (GLX) was founded in 2019, and 1 April marked a new chapter for GLX with the sustainable business development accelerator hosting an exclusive event, “The Future of Asia – Business Champions Leading a Conscious Revolution”, to celebrate its entrepreneurs’ success and outline how it plans to extend its innovative and disruptive growth catalyst efforts even further in the future.
In her opening address at the event, GLX Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Randhula de Silva shared that when GLX first began in 2019, they were operating on the basis that the world was changing, with GLX’s efforts aiming to help the world change consciously and sustainably. Now in March 2021, with the pandemic shedding light on how much we were destroying through how we lived and worked, de Silva explained that the world is no longer changing; it has already changed, with people being forced not just to sustain resources but also to regenerate them, and moving away from the industrial-era assumption that continuous consumption means prosperity.
Founded in 2019 as a pilot project of its development sector partner GIZ Sri Lanka and the German Government, de Silva announced that after just two short years, GLX is now its own independent entity. This phenomenal growth is very much based on GLX’s early successes in catalysing growth for over 40 start-ups and SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) that have now participated in its locally rooted, globally minded, innovation ethics and sustainability-centred growth programmes for business. GLX’s focus on agri-food, tourism, wellness, and design has allowed it to mine potential for disruption in sectors too long overlooked as spaces for innovation and to connect dots for tech innovators to solve deep-rooted problems in these sectors.
The Future of Asia – Business Champions Leading a Conscious Revolution also introduced guests to the five game-changing businesses, who have, over the last five months, been a part of GLX’s latest accelerator programme, “GLX Garage”, implemented with special funding received from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development (BMZ) in response to the impact of Covid-19.
GLX Garage, a programme for mature SMEs with in-built potential to market themselves on the international stage, was piloted amidst the uncertainties of the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. GLX Garage looked at each business individually, conducting a detailed diagnostic and then engaging each company with experts from around the world to help these businesses grow. It collaborated with five entrepreneurs – four agri-food organisations and one sustainable apparel design company – who represented the drive and readiness for taking the best of Sri Lanka to the world by taking a reset and reimagine mindset to their businesses.
The businesses that were a part of GLX Garage were Ceylon Exports Trading and Serendipol, two companies that have been reimagining and reinventing the traditional approach to coconut; Worga Naturals, who has been putting Sri Lanka on the map as an organic jackfruit provider for the vegan and alternative meat market; Target Agriculture, who is diversifying their product portfolio through a novel spice range; and House of Lonali, a lifestyle brand leading the charge for sustainability-centred apparel and accessories design.
Through GLX Garage, these businesses were able to build roadmaps of growth and acceleration for the next two years, with some of them already seeing tangible outcomes. “The programme takes a pressure cooker approach. It’s tough, intensive, and driven to achieve change,” de Silva shared.
Emphasising the power of SMEs to drive change in their business sector through conscious and sustainable practice, The Future of Asia – Business Champions Leading a Conscious Revolution hosted “The Golden Hour”, a panel discussion with the people behind the SMEs that made up GLX Garage, with the entrepreneurs behind these brands exchanging knowledge on best practices in innovation, understanding markets, and how to creatively drive sustainability, ethics, and sustainability of the present market and the growing future-minded global consumer market, as well as how Sri Lankan businesses can gain foothold in global markets through new solutions and value creation.
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'The Golden Hour' Panel Discussion[/caption]
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The selection of locally sourced food curated by GLX[/caption]
Highlighting the power of the sustainable agri-food industry, the event included curated food by GLX using export-quality premium ingredients sourced by GLX companies, including the agri-food businesses that participated in GLX Garage. This eclectic selection of food was curated into platters by Platter It Up, which is also an entrepreneur-driven SME and the first company to introduce curated food platters to the Sri Lankan market.
Through the success of GLX Garage, along with the other programmes and accelerators launched by GLX, as well as its growing list of partner individuals and organisations from Europe, the US, and Asia, GLX has grown quickly and organically to function as a larger stand-alone with capabilities for global growth and impact.
“We’re excited to begin this new chapter of GLX, which has now taken flight on its own. Having built an incredible spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship driven by sustainable and human-centric values at its core, we want to extend our efforts to reach more and more entrepreneurs ready to embrace this change and replicate our success internationally,” de Silva said.
“Our programmes aim at empowering entrepreneurs and founders in their long journey, with social consciousness being the default way of life and business and to place ourselves and to place ourselves strongly and powerfully in the eyes of the world,” de Silva concluded.
'The Golden Hour' Panel Discussion[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_128378" align="alignright" width="379"] The selection of locally sourced food curated by GLX[/caption]
Highlighting the power of the sustainable agri-food industry, the event included curated food by GLX using export-quality premium ingredients sourced by GLX companies, including the agri-food businesses that participated in GLX Garage. This eclectic selection of food was curated into platters by Platter It Up, which is also an entrepreneur-driven SME and the first company to introduce curated food platters to the Sri Lankan market.
Through the success of GLX Garage, along with the other programmes and accelerators launched by GLX, as well as its growing list of partner individuals and organisations from Europe, the US, and Asia, GLX has grown quickly and organically to function as a larger stand-alone with capabilities for global growth and impact.
“We’re excited to begin this new chapter of GLX, which has now taken flight on its own. Having built an incredible spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship driven by sustainable and human-centric values at its core, we want to extend our efforts to reach more and more entrepreneurs ready to embrace this change and replicate our success internationally,” de Silva said.
“Our programmes aim at empowering entrepreneurs and founders in their long journey, with social consciousness being the default way of life and business and to place ourselves and to place ourselves strongly and powerfully in the eyes of the world,” de Silva concluded.