Collaboration, Persistence and Community: Our take on the essence of Innovation - June 6, 2012.
How do we inspire innovation in young people? How
can we successfully marry technology with social entrepreneurship? How do we
foster ideas for positive change?
These were a few of the fundamental questions that
the Innovate4Good@Microsoft event
tried to answer.
Bringing together over 110 young people from more than 20 countries of the
wider European region in Brussels for two days, Microsoft’s initiative aimed at
fostering a community of innovative thinkers and collaborative
problem-solvers. Being myself a strong supporter of Steven Johnson’s
quote that “chance favors the connected mind”, I found this an extremely
well organized event where young people who have made a difference in their
environment stood in front of their peers to present particular business
development concepts and applicable solutions to social issues. And the count?
More than 160 ideas were sticky-noted on the wall within a few hours of brainstorming
between folks of different countries, languages, cultures, backgrounds and
interests.
The inspiring talks of Akhtar Badshah, Senior Director of Global Community
Affairs at Microsoft, encouraged us to look for our own path to success.
It was a pleasant surprise to listen to the principles that you’d want to shape
your professional or academic career from someone that has become successful by
following them.
Be unreasonable, don’t be afraid of fear, expect and embrace failure,
were a few of the ideas shared by Akhtar, who also offered the following
inspired moment of laughter, which captures the essence of collaboration and
tolerance of failure :Passion? Leave passion for the bedroom. It’s
compassion that matters to me, what will make the difference in your work.
Innovate4Good offered what I see as one of the most important initial steps for
promoting innovation: networking. It cultivated networks of young
people, resources and opportunities. And before Jasmer, a friend, co-panelist
at Innvoate4Good and bright example of a youth leader adds her impressions,
I’ll close as I closed my speech at the youth panel: We need to seize each
opportunity that comes our way, no matter how small it seems. Because in this
interconnected world we live in, each opportunity is just a dot of the bigger
picture of our potential that waits to be fulfilled.
Continuing from where Michalis left off, I would like to share my experience of
this inspirational event hosted by Microsoft in Brussels. The reason I was so
keen to attend and share my perspectives on the youth panel was because I felt
that I needed to present one single point – the key factor, the instrumental
element, the magnifier of your desired impact –collaboration. In
my role at AIESEC International last year, I worked closely with Microsoft on
the TechTalent4Good Challenge where we opened the doors of opportunity in the
not-for-profit sector to young IT students. We connected an intricate web
of AIESEC’s IT interns to NGO partners, local mentors and technology from
Microsoft and we were amazed by the ideas and most importantly, the results
generated in the short two months. It was an exciting project to get rolling
and we saw it gain momentum at an incredible pace.
To quote Henry Ford: “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is
progress; working together is success”. This was the crux of the project
and my biggest learning was that networking is simply the start. What
should and needs to follow is building a community and spirit
of collaboration. How will you build a community around you that fosters
connection to the resources, mentors and supporters who will aid your
breakthrough?
Innovate4Good showcased some brilliant examples of young achievers who
channelled their dogged determination to succeed by seeking and winning the
support of a stalwart like Microsoft towards the requisite technology, tools
and training to take an idea forward. A basic step? Yes, indeed. But in my
opinion (and I’m sure they’ll agree) it was this crucial step of approaching,
inviting, learning and sharing that gave them their golden egg.
Today, it is Gen Y that has the immense ability and responsibility to create
social and economic change across the business and non-business worlds. We are
straddling two worlds but with the agility that allows the active learners in
us to benefit from the knowledge imparted to us by the generations preceding
ours, and at the same time, to spin our own webs of collaborative growth
amongst our peers. Innovate4Good gives us that starting point – bringing
youth leaders together with the power of technology to play the role of
socio-economic architects. Leading their thoughts into ideas. Challenging
their ideas to action.
AIESEC representatives were joined at Innovate4Good
by other prominent youth organizations such as Junior
Achievement - Young Enterprise, JADE, Telecentre Europe, AEGEE and ESN Erasmus Student Network.
For more information, please click here.
Source: www.csreurope.org