About GEN in Cambodia

In 2011, GEN partnered with the Young Entrepreneurs Association of Cambodia (YEAC) to conduct the country’s first Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) campaign. Through a variety of workshops and networking events in Phnom Penh, the campaign mobilized Cambodia’s emerging entrepreneurial community and reached aspiring founders and early-stage startups. This coalesced a coalition of ecosystem builders, beginning more than a decade of work that would propel entrepreneurship across the nation.

By 2012, the campaign involved dozens of activities reaching thousands of participants. As the cornerstone of GEW 2013, GEN and YEAC organized the first official Cambodia Entrepreneurs’ Day, which drew in high-profile government participation and support. Hang Chuon Naron, the Minister of Education, Youth and Sport, and Meng Saktheara, the Minister of Industry and Handicrafts, opened the event. Entrepreneurs’ Day became the campaign’s annual anchor. In 2015, the Minister of Commerce, Sun Chanthol, gave the keynote address. By then, the campaign had expanded into a large-scale national event, and GEN’s work building the ecosystem led to year-round programming.

To carry the work forward, GEN responded by establishing a formal national affiliate, GEN Cambodia. Led by Managing Director Molika Veng and chaired by Sok Piseth—who had chaired YEAC until 2017 and is Cambodia's president within the ASEAN Young Entrepreneurs Council—the affiliate serves as a connective hub between Cambodian innovators and the international ecosystem. It runs an investors’ club, provides equity investor training, offers capacity building, and supports founders with mentorship programs that guide startups from the idea stage to formal operations. Two priorities shape its agenda in the country: entrepreneurship-friendly policy and stronger support to help founders scale.

Drawing on GEN's Global Enterprise Registration (GER) program, GEN Cambodia advises policymakers on simplifying business registration. In 2019, GEN continued its work around digital disruption and co-organized Digital Cambodia, a gathering that convened ministers, ambassadors, business associations, and startup hubs. GEN Cambodia also co-organized the Kirirom Global Forum in February 2024 alongside Asia To Asia, Jobify, Kirirom Digital, and Peer Learning Hub. This forum brought together founders and technologists—among them GEN Cambodia board member Chy Sila of Sabay—to examine how artificial intelligence and agricultural technology can support Cambodian businesses.

The 2025 GEW campaign featured the 13th Cambodia Entrepreneurs' Day under the theme “2030 Vision: Investing for the Future.” The week of programming reached seven provinces and five major Phnom Penh institutions, including the National University of Management and the Institute of Technology of Cambodia. A recurring thread across GEN's campaigns in Cambodia has been women's entrepreneurship. During GEW, GEN partnered with Pact on a series of business development workshops. Pact is implementing a five-year, US government-funded program led by Sabine Joukes that provides business, digital, and leadership training to more than 3,500 young women entrepreneurs and connects them to finance.

Government engagement is a consistent feature of GEN's work in Cambodia. At the 2025 Cambodia Entrepreneurs' Day, Deputy Prime Minister Hun Many, who also serves as Minister of Civil Service, presided over the event for the third time and delivered the closing keynote, tying the campaign's goals to the government's ambition of reaching upper-middle-income status by 2030. Cambodia’s leaders have also participated in GEN's global gatherings. Drawing on Cambodia's ASEAN chairmanship, Molika Veng assembled a large national delegation, including four senior government officials, for GEC Melbourne 2023. At that Congress, H.E. Dr. Kan Channmeta, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Industry, Science, Technology and Innovation, represented Cambodia at the Startup Nations Ministerial, GEN's policy-focused gathering of national ministers.

GEN connects Cambodian founders to its global programs. Phnom Penh is home to a Startup Huddle chapter, GEN's community-building program that provides structured, peer-driven support to founders. Through GEN Cambodia's investors’ club and mentorship offerings, founders receive guidance on raising capital and preparing for angel and equity investments. In 2019, GEN launched the Entrepreneurship World Cup (EWC), a global pitch competition that provides training, mentorship, and access to investors as founders compete for a share of $1 million in prizes. Hundreds of Cambodian startups have participated. GEN also connected founders to the Creative Business Cup, an international competition for creative-sector startups that emerged from GEN following the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Liverpool.

GEN maintains relationships across Cambodia's public and private institutions, including the Ministry of Industry, Science, Technology and Innovation, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, along with the state agency Khmer Enterprise, the Rural Development Bank, and the Cambodia Academy of Digital Technology. Universities and colleges such as the National University of Management, the Institute of Technology of Cambodia, CamEd Business School, and the Cambodia-ASEAN International Institute anchor GEN’s work in Phnom Penh, while banks including ABA, ACLEDA, Canadia, and Maybank Cambodia and development partners such as UNIDO and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation are partners. Beyond the capital, GEN has brought its initiatives into Battambang, Kratie, Preah Sihanouk, and Siem Reap.

GEN's work in Cambodia has drawn international recognition. In 2025, GEN named H.E. Dr. Channmeta a finalist for its GEN Policy Award, citing his steadfast support of GEN Cambodia and his contributions to GEN's Startup Nations community. GEN continues to widen its reach by helping Cambodian startups gain access to international markets. In 2025, it organized trips for Cambodian founders to Singapore in partnership with GEN Singapore, where they met investors and learned how to access regional markets. It is also building a combined data dashboard to help ecosystem leaders and policymakers track Cambodia’s startup sector.

As GEN aligns its programs with Cambodia's long-term national development goals, its aim in the country remains what it has been since 2011: to connect Cambodian founders with the knowledge, networks, capital, and policy support they need to start and scale.