Youth Action Challenge (YAC)
A Recap on the Inaugural Season’s Journey
As part of the SG Youth Action Plan (SG YAP), which seeks to engage youths to harness their energies to shape the future of Singapore in 2025, the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) with NYC in the lead launched the Youth Action Challenge in 2019. The YAC calls on youth in Singapore looking to make meaningful change through community-based projects and enterprises. During this challenge, youths from different backgrounds come together in teams and create ideas for a better future. YAC is offered as a unique opportunity for youth to influence, connect, and get advice from policy-makers and other decision-makers in the industry and take action and create their vision of Singapore.
Recap on the Inaugural Season of YAC
In January 2020, 57 youth teams pitched their ideas to a selective and diverse Board, including UNDP and Citi members. The three main themes in the inaugural YAC were — Environment, Job & Future of Work, and Societal Issues.
YAC Springboard Programme
In January 2020, 57 youth teams who submitted their ideas for Youth Action Challenge, were invited to pitch for 5 mins to judges — industry experts, government officials, SGYAP panel members, UNDP staff, Citi employees and more. Pitches were held on 5 different days spanning the three main themes. UNDP and Citi collaborated to include people from the network as judges and experts. The top 12 Teams for the YAC were identified by the end of the qualifiers.
The top 12 teams went through various workshops online and offline and were also offered curated learning resources to build their ideas. Each of the top 12 teams also received a small seed grant of SGD 5K to kickstart work on their projects. All of these resources combines were delivered as the YAC Springboard Programme.
1. Learning Journey — 15th Feb 2020
A full-day event, the learning journey brought together the top 12 teams of the YAC for the very first time. This day included — A Fireside chat with Steve Leonard, (Former) CEO of SG Innovate talking about building an enterprise & the role of technology in impact ventures, A Site Visit to Insectta, an urban farm in Singapore which is also a ground-up social enterprise, and A Human Library interaction where the teams spent two hours talking to and learning from leaders and enablers in the social impact space.
2. Consult Clinics — 22nd Feb 2020
The top 12 teams were exposed to new skills as part of a Consult Clinic under the YAC on 22nd Feb 2020. At the Clinic, the 60+ youth were provided practical lessons on business development, marketing, artificial intelligence, application development, and prototyping by 12 different experts in these areas. The youth consulted these experts in teams, spoke about their project ideas, and took away valuable feedback on the various functional themes.
3. Pitching and Social Media Workshop — 29th Feb
The pitching workshop, facilitated by Chua Ruo Mei, exposed teams to pitching best practices, weaving in compelling stories to evoke interest and engagement and provide an opportunity for the teams to get creative and experimental for the final pitch during the Summit. The Social Media Marketing Workshop, facilitated by Khai, provided teams with creative ideas to produce their own ‘Vote for Me’ clips, to sustain the public’s interest and engagement level.
4. Makers’ Day — 7th March
To allow some of the teams to prototype their products access to the makerspace at the National Design Centre with 3D printing machines, laser machines, and other equipment was offered to the youth. This included credits to use in the space along with consultations with the makerspace’s staff for inputs and advice for prototyping.
5. YCL Springboard Programme — https://www.youthcolab-springboard.org
All the 57 YAC teams have been given access to the comprehensive Youth Co:Lab Springboard Programme — a completely online programme with 8+ modules. The topics range from creating a one-pager to building strategic communications, from impact measurement to access to capital. These modules have been developed in collaboration with the social entrepreneurship ecosystem to make the learning valuable and authentic.
The Top 12 teams have traversed from Jan to June 2020 learning and developing their ideas. Many have also had to pivot their ideas given the changes that the COVID19 pandemic has brought about.
6. Other Engagements — April to July
- One on one check-ins with each of the top 12 teams — 19th to 23rd May
- Pre-Summit Round 2 of the Consult Clinics — 27th to 30th May
- Pre-Summit Online Event on How to Run a Virtual Event — 4th July
- Introduction to the SDGs Interactive Movers Workshop — 16th July
Youth Action Challenge Season 2
The YAC Season 2 took place from October 2020 until January 2021. The themes of this season were: Mental Well-being, Support for Vulnerable Communities, Jobs & Future of Work, and Environment & Sustainability.
In Season 2, youth in Singapore explored an idea or made a reality the one they had in mind. Also, early-stage young social entrepreneurs (less than 2 years since establishment) also participated, so they could truly build and scale their existing ventures in any of the themes above mentioned.
To read more about YAC S2 visit: XXXXXXXX
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/
