Youth Innovation Summit 2019

I was very lucky to be able to attend the Youth Innovation Summit (part of the panel, not as one of the youths in case you were wondering ??) in Ottawa at the end of March.

Organised by the British Council and the United Nations Association of Canada, this summit marks the end of a year long programme for young Canadians who use the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a framework to develop projects with social impact. 11 of the best were invited to the 2.5 day event in Ottawa, where they pitched to a panel for seed funding ($4,000 and $1,000)

It’s hard to summarise, but, for me, some of the key messages were:

Be Prepared

Senator David Wells, a keen mountain climber, drew parallels between his hobby and life challenges. Preparation is key, do the hard work and remember to enjoy it, if not during the hard part then after it. He also stressed the importance of being ready to articulate your cause – it’s not a case of memorising an elevator pitch but if you know the impact you are trying to have then you can share that with others, without too much concern, whenever the opportunity arises.

Networking is Nosiness

UNA-C president Kate White pointed out that most people in the room would be uncomfortable with networking, but that “networking is just nosiness.” Ask questions, join in a conversation, be interested.

Failure is Fine

The British High Commissioner Susan le Jeune d'Allegeershecque was clear that failure is fine – it’s an important part of learning what to do. Admit it, decide whether to try again or walk away, but don’t drop your standards or your values.

Collaborate

Chris Martin, CEO of Social Enterprise Scotland and Marya Afzal Country Director for the British Council were both clear that social innovation is required to solve some of the seemingly intractable problems we are facing - big problems requite innovation. Many social enterprises are small, but that’s fine because together we are much stronger than the sum of our parts.

Young People Rock

Young people get a lot of bad press, but this group of people not only restored my faith in humanity, they made me feel like I should be doing much, much, more with my life! For all of them, these projects are just part of a hugely busy schedule: holding down full-time jobs, studying, families, already managing a business – honestly, these guys take multi-tasking, or being multi-hyphenate – in their stride.

Indigenous Drivers

Similar to Australia, a significant interest in social enterprise stems from the massive damage done to indigenous populations over the decades/centuries and many of the applicants to the social innovation competition were seeking to directly to benefit indigenous communities, either by providing them a service, creating employment opportunities or both. I was delighted to connect them with Canadian author Shuan Loney who spoke at the CEIS conference in 2017 and has lots of experience in this area.

Historic Connections

Canada’s and Scotland’s partnership on social enterprise has been in the news recently, and at CEIS we have strong connections with Canada through SEI, SEWF and our International team. The evening reception was held at the High Commissioner’s house on the waterfront and it was great to meet Chris Maskell, deputy Head of Scottish Affairs Canada too.

Judging is Hard

My day job as CEIS primarily involves meeting social entrepreneurs, listening to them and then working out how we can best help them. Most of my role at the panel was similar, but instead of having an hour we had 5 minutes! That was hard. The young innovators were so well prepared and and clearly all, without exception, spent a lot of time thinking about their projects, the impact they could have and how to embed sustainability. So to have to try and do justice to them in the short amount of time was really challenging. I know that pitching is a 'thing' and the summit hopefully provided the young people with a safe space to practice and to learn. I hope they all got something out of it and the organisers did a really great job of making sure everyone was comfortable and able to perform at their best. We were fortunate in that after we'd heard the pitches and selected the two prizewinners (see below) we then got to spend a little more time with each of the participants giving them more feedback and asking some challenging questions for them to think about as their project develops.

This experience was very new to me and I am grateful for how supportive my fellow panel members were, generous with their knowledge and experience.

Inclusion is a Choice

Diversity and Inclusion turned into a bit of an unexpected theme of my trip, what with my visit to the Global Centre for Pluralism and the Canadian Citizenship ceremony, the focus on indigenous people in some of the pitches we heard and finally my own presentation on diversity given to the young people on the last day. The phrase from the ceremony that really stuck with me was, "diversity is a reality, inclusion is a choice." so I chose to talk not only about why diverse organisations are important but also why it can be so hard to create them effectively.

Life is, well, Life

Corinne Cline from the Royal Bank of Canada gave an analogy that really touched a chord with me. When you are young you imagine your life will unfold like a pathway, with checkpoints and milestones and order. But sometimes life does not unfold evenly or kindly, but more like if you turn a blender on without the lid. And that’s okay, ask for help and be kind to yourself. Corinne also shared a Shel Silverstein poem that I was not familiar with, but I’ve put below, Listen to the mustn’ts - seems like it could be the anthem for very many social enterprises we have worked with.

It goes without saying that I really enjoyed the trip and am really glad to have had the opportunity. I also was privileged to witness a Citizenship Ceremony at Global Centre for Pluralism and you can read more about it here.

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The projects that were shortlisted to pitch at the event are below. Many are on LinkedIn - if you are interested in finding out more or supporting any of these young people I would encourage you to get in touch with them:

Mayra Sanchez Alvarez - Calebrijes

Calebrijes aims to educate people in the arts while also showing them how to make more environmentally friendly decisions.

Trevor Bessette - Seaside Reclaimed

Seaside Reclaimed is a textile management project that will prevent textiles from entering landfills. Trevor already owns an ethical clothing company, Seaside Apparel.

Samantha Burns - Veg Out

Veg Out will be an open and accessible space in Halifax for community members to learn about sustainable food, local agriculture and cooking.

Sara Elhawash -  Youth Market

Youth Market is a primarily digital platform to prepare young people for the job market, and to connect companies to talent.

Michelle Fraser & Shawna Moore - Tkaronto Teachings

Tkaronto Teachings is about facilitating and encouraging a deeper connection to the land in Tkaronto (also known as Toronto) for newcomers and those not Indigenous to these parts.

Ogonna Jideobi -  Ankara Wardrobe

Ankara Wardrobe is an ethical fashion brand that trains and hires low-skilled people living in local shelters and transitional housing units so that they can achieve economic independence.

Keshana King - The Actionpreneur Project (TAP) Winner of $1,000 prize

The Actionpreneur Project (TAP) will provide holidays camps for young black people to raise aspirations, facilitate entrepreneurship and empower black youth with useful tools for personal development.

Zaffia Laplante – Hempergy Winner of $4,000 prize

Hempergy seeks to create natural insulation materials from hemp in order to improve heating and energy efficiency for buildings and homes. They want to use this low carbon, mould proof, fire resistant and non-toxic insulation as a potential tool that can help support the Indigenous housing crisis taking place across rural and urban indigenous communities in Canada, as well as providing employment opportunities.

Foram Patel -  Break Free

The Break Free movement centres on teaching dance and using it to express emotions and a way of coping with trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), particularly for refugees and asylum seekers.

Uche Umolu - The Consent Workshop (TCW)

The Consent Workshop (TCW) is a global youth led movement deconstructing rape culture through consent education, awareness and provision of resources.

 Rachel Wang - Evoke Creatives

Evoke Creatives provides environmental solutions for the live music sector. Evoke offers a range of environmental solutions, such as plastic-free campaigns, sustainable transport options, clean energy provision, and waste diversion. 

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The event was joyful and positive but it was also marked by deep sorrow – four members of the UNA-C family, including three young volunteers, were tragically killed in the Ethiopia Airlines disaster in March. The conference organisers rightly marked this loss at the event and it gave an extra impetus to try and solve some of the challenges that drove these young people to follow the humanitarian paths they were on when their lives were so tragically cut short.