Industry Experts and Ministry’s Members offered Mentorship Sessions to Youth Action Challenge Participants Through Consult Clinics
On November 7th, 2020, 60 teams of youth in Singapore took part in the Consult Clinics under the Youth Action Challenge (YAC), our youth entrepreneurship programme. At this online event, the teams were exposed to 1–1 consultation sessions with 38 incredible consultants who provided mentorship support and shared relevant expertise to help the youth to bring their ideas to reality. The main areas discussed were related to Marketing, Business Development, Tech (e.g. app development/coding/AI), User Interface/User Experience, Community development, and Forging Partnerships and working with partners.
This Consult Clinic brought together members of various ministries and industry experts from all kinds of backgrounds and areas of expertise, including Erik Liu, Digital Product Manager, Citi FinTech, Christy Davis, Executive Director of the Lien Centre for Social Innovation at the Singapore Management University, Tuan Nguyen, Deputy Director of SGInnovate, Ashish Rajpal, CEO/Founder of XSEED Education, among many others. Also, David Chua, CEO of the National Youth Council, and Minister of State, Alvin Tan, joined the event with a Fireside Chat with the youth and consultants.
YAC Season 2
This session was part of the YAC season 2, a 4-month journey that started in October this year and it’s engaging more than 200 participants, split into 60 different teams.
Due to the current COVID-19 situation, all engagements have been conducted online. Nonetheless, since October, the energetic youth have been taking part in various engagements highly inspired to create meaningful projects for the benefit of Singapore. The themes identified for this season were: Mental Wellbeing, Support for Vulnerable Communities, Jobs & Future of Work and Environment & Sustainability.
On October 3rd and 10th, the youth got to learn about the national landscape, policy context, and gaps for the respective themes through Context Setting Sessions. Then, by October 17th, they took part in a Needs Analysis and Project Scoping Webinar, which offered different useful tools and frameworks to help them ideate and evaluate potential ideas, including an introduction to the design thinking process.
Participants will continue their journey until January 30th, 2021. Teams will be provided with more resources, mentorship, and network opportunities through Consult clinics and different training sessions and workshops. Some topics to be covered are Story Pitching, Financial literacy, Impact Management, and Access to Capital. Also, they’d get to prepare them for their mid-point and final open mic sessions.
By the end of the programme, all teams will be pitching their final ideas in a Final Open Mic Session to industry experts and policy-makers. According to their needs, they’ll be provided resources, networks, and up to $50,000 in grants to implement ideas and get the chance to qualify as Youth Co: Lab Champions, an opportunity for aspiring social entrepreneurs to represent Singapore in the YCL Regional Summit 2021, as well as getting a long-term relationship with YCL Singapore-continuous mentoring support, access to its regional network of industry experts and unique funding opportunities.
About the Youth Action Challenge
The Youth Action Challenge (YAC) is a key thrust of the SG Youth Action Plan (SG YAP), organised in partnership with Citi Foundation and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through the Citi-UNDP Youth Co:Lab initiative. It empowers youth to champion ground-up initiatives in partnership with the government, businesses, and community organisations, to achieve youth’s vision for Singapore in 2025. It provides the opportunity for youth to turn their ideas into reality through curated workshops and guidance from experienced industry professionals.
YAC season 2 participants include youth in Singapore aged 15 to 35 years old. YAC season 2 also invited youth entrepreneurs, from early-stage registered enterprises, to participate. These companies have less than two years as a registered entities and must be contributing to one of the event’s tracks through their business approach.
About Youth Co:Lab
Co-created in 2017 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Citi Foundation, Youth Co:Lab aims to establish a common agenda for countries in the Asia-Pacific region to empower and invest in youth so that they can accelerate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through leadership, social innovation and entrepreneurship. To learn more about the Youth Co: Lab, visit: https://www.youthcolab.org/
