$ 1 : 16
For every $1 of value invested, One Young World Ambassadors deliver $16 of social value, based on a Social Return on Investment analysis of 42 Ambassador-led initiatives addressing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2022
SDG Impact Tracker
Interested in supporting impactful initiatives led by young leaders? Search this database of over 350 projects from the One Young World Community to find out more.
Refugee Outreach Programme
Refugee Outreach Programme - United Kingdom
Yousra Abdelmoneim, Deborah Owen
Business for Social Good
Yousra and Deborah were both dedicated to assisting with the refugee crisis before they attended the Summit. Yousra used PwC’s ‘One Firm One Day” scheme to provide time and assistance to the Refugee Council, whilst Deborah grew up supporting “Refugees at Home”. At the Summit in the Hague, Yousra connected with a fellow Ambassador who runs a refugee support centre in the Netherlands and seeing her work motivated Yousra to scale up the initiative and leverage the capacity of PwC.
Together they have developed the Refugee Outreach Programme, partnering with the Refugee Council and the CodeYourFuture team to help refugees integrate into the UK labour market successfully. Support ranges from CV writing to skills-based trainings, and basic introductions to the UK market. Employees who volunteer for the programme also receive training to improve the support they are able to provide the refugees. There was also a campaign during International Refugee Week, which included a documentary screening and a panel discussion.
Internally, as part of the refugee awareness sessions, participants receive contextual information on the refugee crisis and experience in the UK and listen to the personal story of someone from a refugee background. In the pandemic, the programme has been continued virtually, and to date, 463 people have attended 12 awareness sessions. Off the back of a session, one director was inspired to employ people of a refugee background, which has already led to the hiring of two full-time employees.
Of these participants, some of the PwC employees have gone on to use this knowledge as volunteers, to support the Refugee Outreach Programme. Each programme lasts between 4 and 5 weeks, whereby there is a skill-session run in partnership with the clients from a refugee background. Following the PwC-led sessions, partner organisations have recap sessions with the participants to ensure that the information has been received correctly, and 163 refugee “clients” have benefitted from this programme helping them to integrate into the labour market.
“One Young World has inspired me to take action to support Refugees at PwC by promoting refugee awareness and to recognise that everyone can help. It’s opened up my eyes to the role that private organisations can have in driving employability and equipping refugees with the skills to reach their maximum potential and to continue to serve our communities”
“One Young World has empowered me to go further in our work with supporting refugees at PwC, and critically analyse the project, to ensure that we are supporting those who need it most. It has given me the inspiration and drive to change the status quo and challenge leaders on their actions”
S.T.A.R. Program
Working as a data scientist at Google, Lara and her colleague were concerned by the stereotypes, prejudices, and lack of female role models, that create obstacles to young women and girls in pursuing education and a career in STEM. Bringing together a group of volunteers in the organisation, with a shared passion for STEM subjects, she created the S.T.A.R. Program. S.T.A.R. is an acronym for stereotype breaking, tech training, advisory, and role modelling.
Lara was invited to the London Summit by her Manager in the Italian branch of the company, as a result of her achievement in this role but also due to her success in starting the S.T.A.R. Program. Already interested in the issue of the gender gap, she was inspired to involve more colleagues in the S.T.A.R. Program and expand its impact to help open opportunities for girls and young women in the area.
The S.T.A.R. Program is a workshop created and organised by volunteers for teenagers between 14 and 18 years old, to convey the importance of this subject and to encourage them to pursue this avenue of education. Lara and the team visit schools with workshops and a gamified approach to education. For younger participants, they developed simple coding exercises to give them the foundation for future education. During the pandemic, they shifted to a digital format to continue the education remotely. This allowed them to reach new people in 2021, with over 800 students, increasing their access to educational programmes through a new pipeline of running an event every month. Lara and the team have also built a parallel Train the Trainer format, to enable their colleagues and external educators to help to spread the content and its message.
The impact is measured through a pre and post programme survey that gauges how the sessions have affected students’ interest and understanding in STEM, and how the programme met students’ expectations. In the two schools where this has been conducted, there has been overwhelming approval of the programme.
“One Young World has been an experience that motivated me not only to do better but be better. A good message from One Young World was we cannot do everything, but we can do something. So I decided to focus more on this project, to strengthen the collaboration with my group, involve other colleagues and give this project a new wave of energy.”
CAMEX Purpose Team
Julián, a Reckitt employee for over 7 years, recently moved to Mexico to take on a new role as Legal Associate Director for Mexico and Central America. In doing so he left behind a legacy of impact in Colombia, typified by the Sustainability School. This project continues to educate employees about the UN SDGs and how their actions can improve sustainability outcomes both at work and in the community. The Purpose team led several programmes to guarantee that purpose is at the heart of decisions at Reckitt. In 2021, Reckitt donated more than 400 tonnes of relief products to people in need during the pandemic across México and Central America markets.
Julián brought his expertise to this new branch to lead a Purpose Team for the Mexico and Central America region. Julián collaborates with 11 other employees to ensure sustainability is at the forefront of decision making in the region. He learned lessons from his work in Colombia and transported the Sustainability College model. This has covered a variety of important topics from the fundamentals of the Sustainable Development Goals, to how employees can take that information home and generate their own impact. The monthly programme has increased from 10 participants to around 220 and continues to grow.
Julián has overseen various projects including a donation programme run in partnership with the World Food Bank. Through this products written off by the company for primarily superficial reasons, such as mispackaging, are donated to certified NGOs. This has expanded to also involve volunteering programmes in the communities where these NGOs operate, to provide hygiene workshops for the recipients to use Reckitt products effectively to tackle sanitation issues. Additionally, in his legal capacity, Julián is working with the Atizapan Factory to install solar panels across the factory to scale up clean, renewable energy use in the supply chain.
Julián also supports Reckitt’s Lead2030 mentorship for EkogroupH2O+. He believes in the importance of partnerships and how together we can accelerate the impact in our communities. See page X for more details on this partnership.
Ana Henriques, Anheuser-Busch InBev
Ana Henriques, Anheuser-Busch InBev - United States
Ana Henriques
Leadership Biographies
Ana began her career in marketing with a general understanding of ‘sustainability’ but the concept seemed abstract to her work life. Quickly rising through the ranks at PepsiCo, she was invited to attend the One Young World Summit in 2013. The event in Johannesburg transformed this ‘abstract concept’ into something practical and actionable.
The sessions with global icons such as Kofi Anan and Professor Yunus and her personal interactions with young people driving impact provided the mindset shift Ana needed. She returned to her company inspired and motivated to use her skills and platform for social impact.
Back at PepsiCo, the team that attended the Summit was entrusted with an initiative to develop inclusivity and invest in the brain power of the company’s diverse talent. This allowed her to extend the One Young World experience as she continued to collaborate with diverse leaders across the organization. But Ana wanted more and she decided to broaden her horizons by pursuing an international experience, working in a variety of roles over the next 6 years, including placements in China between 2016 and 2019. Her desire to embed the SDGs within all her projects, even in her day to day, remained throughout.
In 2019, a new chapter and a new opportunity for social impact emerged in the form of a Global Vice President position at AB InBev. She was soon selected to lead the company’s global non-alcoholic beverage business, developing talent, and focusing marketing and campaigns around sustainability aligned with the organisation’s purpose. The position gave Ana the scope to manifest the spirit of One Young World.
Ana leads a global leadership programme for women in her team, helping tackle gender equality. The programme supports and empowers women to take on leadership roles, and collaborates with men in senior positions to support this process as allies. Further, in alignment with SDG 5, Ana is proud of the investment that two key brands in her portfolio have made towards gender equality in Brazil and Colombia, particularly focused in the sports’ world. This has included the creation and sponsorship of the first all-female e-sports team with Pony Malta in Colombia.
As a board member of the AB InBev Foundation, Ana worked to support funding for an accelerator initiative focused on underrepresented entrepreneurs who don’t have access to investment and network support. This process guarantees access to the resources required to turn an idea into an enterprise, which is otherwise only accessible by those with a more privileged background and network.
“The One Young World experience was an awakening – the realisation that I did have a platform to enable progress and personally impact change.”
Karla Parajeles, Western Union
As a young Western Union employee, Karla developed an interest in diversity and inclusion after speaking to a colleague who had recently attended a global gathering of young leaders in Bogotá. Her colleague had been inspired to bring sustainability issues back to the company and turn this concern into concrete action. Together, Karla and Bárbara González worked to promote young leaders within the company and launched the first DEI Committee.
Recognised for her leadership potential, Karla was selected to attend the 2018 edition of the international event attended by her colleague, the One Young World Summit in the Hague. This experience accelerated her ideas and her drive to make an impact in her job. One particular taxi journey with a fellow Western Union delegate, David Salazar, after attending a dinner where the two young leaders had interacted with refugees from Turkey, was the inspiration for launching a new project that could address the refugee crisis in Nicaragua at the time.
After the Summit, Karla took on leadership of the DEI committee which had inspired the creation of 10 new committees in WU offices around the world since the group formed in Costa Rica. The team have expertise across various topics from gender identity to mental wellbeing. Karla has expertise in the latter and has driven initiatives with the team to educate managers on identifying and supporting employees suffering from mental health issues, and runs workshops to improve awareness and understanding of mental wellbeing in the office. The growth of these projects and other campaigns on the matter has led to the transition into an independent wellness committee that has created a certification for managers to guarantee leadership in the company are equipped to deal with mental wellbeing matters.
Inspired by the aforementioned conversation with David, Karla launched a programme to assist the integration of refugees in Costa Rica. Taking a lesson from the Summit, she opened a dialogue with people from refugee and immigrant backgrounds to ensure the initiative was designed according to their needs. It explores how Western Union can be more inclusive of refugees in the hiring process, adjusting communications and requests so as not to discourage or discriminate against them. The team runs job fairs, volunteer days for employees to support refugee-run initiatives, and open days for refugee-run enterprises to sell their products or services to staff.
Karla continues to drive forward new sustainability initiatives in the company, with a new Advocates Programme in development. This will help to create a community of allies in the company, who advocate for DEI and support the work of the committee from outside the core team.
“One Young World allowed me to elevate my corporate profile and advance my career development by giving me the unimaginable opportunity to join my passion for humanitarian causes with the development of leadership skills. I have now grown from an individual contributor to a people manager and still invest time on the causes I respect.”
Young Advisory Board
Luka has sought to create more efficient channels of communication between senior executives and junior employees to influence leadership development and drive positive change in his company. Novartis recognised Luka’s potential by sending him to the 2019 London Summit. The stories recounted by highly successful fellow delegates inspired Luka to not just listen but lead, motivating him to take his own action.
Returning to Novartis, Luka held open discussions with senior leaders and explored leveraging the idea of creating broader impact through the ambition of like-minded colleagues and senior executives. The company encouraged Luka to launch a pilot version of a Young Advisory Board (YAB) with a global executive, comprised of fellow Ambassadors, and a Country President, connecting ambitious young minds who seek change and improvement.
The aim of the group is to create a safe, non-competitive environment, fostering collaboration between young professionals and senior executives to exchange ideas that have a significant impact on the business and culture of the company or broader environment. The YAB also serves as a sounding board for management decisions. The current generation of YAB meets monthly with the Country CEO, exchanging ideas and challenges, and collaborating on solutions. This serves both as leadership development for young employees, and as an invaluable resource for senior leaders. After each year-long cycle, 10 new employees aged between 25-35 replace the Board members, whilst two incumbents take on leadership roles for the new group. Each new generation sets out its unique values and goals at the beginning of its cycle.
The group has managed to launch initiatives affecting 6,000 employees in Slovenia with a focus on leadership development, sustainability, employee health and corporate change. As the Board becomes a more embedded part of company decision-making, the Young Advisory Board sets its sights on further improvements in the workplace and even sets an example for other companies in Slovenia to follow. Already, the initiative has been recognised nationally with the Golden Practice Award for innovative and efficient human resource practice.
“One Young World inspired me to take action and create change that impacts the company and broader environment. It has provided a platform to meet like-minded individuals who are creating a better tomorrow.”
Sabrina Wuersch, Buhler Group
Starting out as a young female, polymechanic in Bühler, sustainability has been a concern and a passion for Sabrina. It started out at an individual level, being aware of global inequality due in large part to her Brazilian heritage. However, it was while watching a One Young World highlight video in 2015 as the Bühler Group considered sending a delegation to the Summit that her interest was piqued.
Due to her proactivity and engagement as an apprentice, Sabrina and 5 other employees were chosen to attend the Ottawa Summit in 2016. The CTO & CHRO instructed them to “be inspired” and bring back their ideas and energy to drive the company forward, but she could not envisage how. Delegate speakers such as Micronesian climate activist Yolanda Joab opened her eyes to the inequality of these global challenges, and speeches from global leaders such as Professor Yunus showed Sabrina how change was possible.
Rather than focus upon one initiative, the team decided to try and create a movement in the company. This led to her forming Generation B, a grassroots movement that could drive employee engagement, spread sustainability awareness and action, and give young employees a voice that was heard and listened to by senior management. Inspired by sessions she attended at the Summit, Sabrina & the team launched a series of workshops to educate and train staff for sustainability internally.
She implemented the buddy system to make sure new employees were integrated socially and professionally into the 10,000+ person company. Another core programme of Generation B was the Experience Sharing Series, running mentorship sessions that connected employees to top international managers who shared advice and recommendations to help the team navigate the company and implement their ideas effectively.
To prevent these events and programmes from being dependent on the same individuals, and to encourage fresh ideas and innovations for the movement, Sabrina has passed on her role in the group but continues to support their activities. Instead, outside her current role as a Product Manager, she co-founded the initiative Kickstart with her HR D&I counterpart and fellow Ambassador, Corinne Schneider, and co-leads the group’s initiative inspiring young women to develop a career in STEM. The group of passionate colleagues around the world, platform and promote the stories of successful women in tech to present role models to young women starting out their careers.
Within her own role and as a product manager, Sabrina is also constantly working to minimise the negative impact, predominantly stemming from waste, and maximise sustainable innovations within her processes.
“One Young World was a true eye-opener to me. Back then 'sustainability' was a buzzword but I had no clue about the negative impacts around the world if they were not considered and lived in my life. It really made me think about how I can make change happen and was a driver into choosing a career where I can have impact on the whole world.”
AI Fairness Initiative
AI Fairness Initiative - United Kingdom
Finn Janson, Marta Batlle
Business for Social Good
Clinical trial populations have historically failed to represent certain demographics, in particular minority ethnicities, who are disproportionately impacted by a particular medical condition under research. In the USA, only 2% of clinical trial populations are black, despite Multiple Sclerosis having a 47% higher risk for this demographic than for white patients.
As data scientists at Roche, Finn and Marta are using artificial intelligence to improve patient outcomes. They are working to understand and correct bias in datasets used for medical research, by generating synthetic data that is representative of underrepresented populations. Having shared this solution with senior management, Finn and Marta were selected to represent Roche at the One Young World Summit in Munich.
After attending, they were inspired to formalise the AI Fairness initiative and established a squad to build a tool that identifies and corrects bias in medical datasets. The tool analyses and provides “bias metrics” for each patient population. It will also provide a solution for this bias, using methods such as the aforementioned synthetic data solution. This AI Fairness tool will help scientists to provide fair research outputs, improving patient outcomes across all populations. They are partnering with another group in Roche to apply their tool to the prediction of adverse events in clinical trials based on patients' data. This research will allow scientists to understand better how predictions for adverse events vary for different demographics, improving the predictive model for the benefit of underrepresented populations.
Finn and Marta are also working with a community in the company responsible for defining a best practice framework for using AI models. By integrating their initiative into this framework and giving guidance on the problem and how to solve it, Finn and Marta aim to make the AI Fairness solution standard practice within the research community at Roche.
"One Young World has inspired me to be bold and ambitious. The Summit and my fellow Ambassadors taught me how passion, expressed through dialogue, can be an impetus for powerful change."
Rishi Dorai, bp
For seven years, Rishi worked as a geologist in bp’s exploration businesses on projects across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Encouraged by the role of large corporations in driving innovative solutions, Rishi was keen to explore the new challenges within bp, while in search of his own purpose. It was the perfect time for his introduction to One Young World.
bp provided Rishi with the opportunity to attend the 2017 Bogotá Summit. The inspiration from this global forum of leaders has since helped Rishi find his own purpose and shaped many aspects of his life and career. It reinvigorated his belief in the role of global organisations in driving positive impact and serving as amplifiers for social change. Since that first Summit, Rishi has returned each year, further honing how sustainability can align with his work.
Testament to bp’s support of its One Young World Ambassadors at an executive level, Rishi’s association with the programme opened doors in the company. With fellow Ambassador Kate Arbuthnot, Rishi was invited to participate in bp’s carbon strategy workshops. Together, they provided the perspectives of an emerging generation of young leaders in a room of industry veterans. The experience built Rishi’s confidence in his own voice and helped him form relationships with highly influential leaders at the forefront of the energy transition.
This experience led to Rishi being seconded into bp’s group strategy team in the summer of 2019. There he was tasked with developing a global portfolio model of bp’s Scope 1, 2, and 3 carbon emissions, the latter incorporating emissions associated with the use of energy products by its customers. Paired with solutions for emissions reductions, this was presented to bp executives, and ultimately landed Rishi a permanent role in the team. As part of Bernard Looney’s transition into his role as bp’s new CEO in late 2019, Rishi was invited to join a special project team tasked with developing the company’s route to net-zero along with a strategy to turn this ambition into action. It was a ground-breaking move – bp was the first in its sector to announce a net-zero ambition and lean into the energy transition at this scale.
It was this spirit of leveraging a company as an amplifier for positive impact that enabled Rishi to find himself in a role that not only changed the course of his company, but trailblazed a path for industry-wide impact, with many of bp’s peers since following suit.
Rishi was appointed to the role of ESG Director in Strategy & Sustainability, where he continues to play an active role in bp’s sustainability journey. Alongside this, Rishi was announced as One Young World’s Coordinating Ambassador for the UK & Ireland, where he keeps Ambassadors engaged and connected, providing a springboard from which to progress their own impact journeys.
“My One Young World experiences inspired a stubborn determination that I needed to find a way to connect my purpose with that of what I do at work. Moreover, it helped me realise that – with the resources, reach and support of a global organisation behind you – you really do have the power to change the world.”
Kofi Gyamfi, Unilever
As a student engineer, Kofi engaged with Unilever through a business competition, before becoming a brand ambassador at the University of Ghana and completing a supply chain internship in 2015. He joined the Human Resource division after his graduation as an Employer Brand Specialist, and later as a Talent Advisor. After a nearly three-year stint in Human Resources, Kofi decided to pivot to Supply Chain where he has developed into a young leader in sustainability leading the company’s ambitious efforts towards circularity in plastic packaging in the West Africa Region.
In his previous position, he had become aware of the opportunity to participate in One Young World through applications he oversaw by local colleagues. In his new role, Kofi felt empowered to apply and was one of 40 employees globally selected to attend the 2019 Summit in London. The event electrified Kofi, and the people he met inspired him with a real sense of urgency. The Summit expanded his internal network at Unilever, but also connected him with an invaluable group of peers outside the company. He felt inspired to represent and lead not only his company but his country, Ghana.
Kofi channelled this energy into accelerating Unilever’s goals to make all of its plastic reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025 and collect more plastic than it sells. To further this, they co-created a corporate advocacy platform that builds partnerships with other companies in the industry to tackle the issue in Ghana and Nigeria. He identified plastic aggregators and invested resources in waste collection partners to recover plastics from the environment. Within two years, in Nigeria alone, Kofi’s actions led to the recovery of 2,000 tonnes of plastics working with collection partners like WeCyclers.
After dedicating his time to this role, Kofi had learned a lot and exhausted a lot of opportunities for new impact. This motivated his move to a new role, as Regional Strategy Sourcing Planner. Kofi wanted a greater understanding of the supply chain to build his capacity to lead a sustainable supply chain in the future.
Alongside his work at Unilever, Kofi is an active leader at the Design Thinking Ghana Hub, assisting students in starting their entrepreneurial journeys by incorporating the human perspective at every step of the way. He helps them structure their approach to problem-solving leading to innovative sustainable ventures.
“One Young World heightened my awareness of the urgent need for climate action and my responsibility to lead in whatever capacity I can to create change.”
Alif Capital
Zuhursho and his co-founders did not set out to start ‘another micro-credit company’ in 2014, but a commercial initiative with a social orientation. Fundamental to this was sharia compliance to make a financial institution that was inclusive of the majority Muslim population in Tajikistan. They created investment rules that adhered to the values of Islam, and the nuances of religious views on interest payments. This allows them to provide high-quality and importantly ‘ethical’ financial solutions for small and medium-sized businesses.
From 2014 to 2019, the company offered its first loan, built a CRM system from scratch, secured its banking license in Tajikistan, expanded to Uzbekistan, launched an online retail platform, developed a tech talent training programme, and much more. This rapid growth has allowed Alif’s portfolio of companies to generate revenue according to its core ethical principles. Between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, more than 700,000 people have had access to financing as a result of their services. One particular demographic that has benefited is migrant workers based in Russia, who are able to easily direct funds back to their households in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan.
Fundamental to the ethicality of this micro-credit service is the lack of penalty fees which are prohibited according to the company’s Sharia compliance. To prevent ‘shark loan’ traps, all prices are fixed regardless of whether a person does not fulfil their payments on time. This would normally be the main source of income in the industry, but while there is a charge to promote reasonable repayment, any proceeds are directed into a charitable foundation, Peshraft. The organisation also directly supports the Alif Academy, a non-profit school of IT professionals that helps people of all ages learn programming and access employment opportunities.
"One Young World selected me to represent my home country and travel all the way to Ottawa to take part in the Summit in 2016. This level and quality of organisation and diversity of minds, set high standards for me personally and professionally. I was not just impressed, it was simply mind-blowing. I was exposed to extraordinary people and ideas, common challenges and opportunities in the contemporary world. It forced me to think and act outside of my domain of responsibilities and national borders."
Niya
Toby and his two co-founders, Cameron and Hugh, identified a fundamental gap between tech companies that could not identify diverse sources of quality talent, and the tech talent from disadvantaged backgrounds who could not access the necessary opportunities for work. The three social entrepreneurs founded Niya as a solution to these two intertwined challenges.
Niya is bridging the digital and diversity divide by connecting underrepresented groups to global job opportunities in tech. It identifies the talent through its partnerships with non-profits that support communities that lack access to adequate opportunities. The original stakeholder group were individuals from a refugee and migrant background, and Niya worked with organisations that provide tech education to these communities as well as those who provide more general support. These talented individuals are listed on the Niya platform, which is accessed by a variety of potential recruiters, from tiny tech startups to large multinational organisations.
From this initial focus, the company has expanded its scope to address the imbalance for women in tech, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and neurodiverse groups. Niya is a social enterprise, and for every successful hire from the platform, 80% of the fee is directed to the frontline organisation that referred the individual. This accelerates the impact of this solution on the wider marginalised communities. It is also important to the team that Niya practises what it preaches, and 7 of its 11 employees come from a refugee background.
"The most valuable thing about One Young World is that you’re surrounded by a network of like-minded people. By connecting with other individuals and organisations who advocate for positive change I’ve been reminded to constantly evaluate the impact Niya has on the community and guided on how to maximise that for the greater good."
Memori / Mirath
Memori was founded in 2019, the year that Queenie attended the One Young World Summit in London. Her personal experience exposed her to an issue in Brunei where it is very rare for an individual to prepare a will due to perceived costs, cultural norms and legal proceedings. When her grandparents passed away, she endured and witnessed family disputes over funeral arrangements and wealth distribution.
Queenie started Memori with her close friends to simplify the process and improve access to basic legacy planning services in a digital manner with the aim of tackling misconceptions. It started as a legacy-planning platform that allowed customers to write a Will and attend financial and estate planning workshops. However, despite positive feedback; single-handedly overturning cultural norms is challenging for the small enterprise.
During the pandemic, Queenie and her team diversified after receiving inquiries to support the Muslim community. They created Mirath.io to provide equivalent and relevant support for Islamic legacy planning, including “Jenazah” kits which give low-income Muslim households the materials required for an Islamic Funeral (namely bathing and enshrouding). Mirath has helped more than 700 people write wills and provided Jenazah kits to more than 100 families, since 2019.
Memori is the first Bruneian start-up that has been selected to participate in numerous Global Startup competitions. Recently, Queenie was awarded the ‘National Excellent Youth Award of 2021’ by His Majesty, Sultan of Brunei Darussalam.
"It was an eye-opening experience for me. I am deeply grateful to be given the opportunity to learn from so many inspiring changemakers, and innovators, whose solutions may seem so simple yet have the power to provoke widespread impact and societal change. They’ve inspired me to continue to make a change in my community."
GenEd
GenEd has developed significantly since the idea of an educational initiative first formed in Ghea’s mind in 2010. The early incarnation “Gen Peace”, focused on intra-school violence resulting from a lack of critical thinking. Since then, Ghea has placed teachers at the centre of the solution, creating “Generation Educators”. The Indonesian ed-tech start-up has developed a dynamic web platform that enables teachers to upskill, improve practices, bring innovation to classrooms, be inspired, and connect with teacher networks for their own development. This facilitates them in developing and shaping critical thinkers in the classroom, which will help to create a more educated, literate, and engaged generation.
The other side of the business forges partnerships between schools and the private sector, in order to bridge the employment skills gap. It has co-created modules with companies such as Deloitte to provide education for students that is valued by potential employers and relevant to their future careers. Teachers are able to connect and workshop 1-on-1 with professionals in relevant fields, such as economic teachers collaborating with accountancy professionals, to develop innovative lesson plans. In 2022, GenEd has already engaged with 156 teachers from various backgrounds in high-quality professional development programs, and approximately 900 students have benefitted from innovative classroom exercises.
In scaling the initiative, GenEd aims to focus on working with the Ministry of Education and Universities to deliver programs for public school teachers and school leaders in smaller districts outside of Jakarta. GenEd also seeks to serve other chains of less privileged private schools across different Indonesian cities.
“One Young World was a huge catalyst in my pursuit of a social cause. I have never attended an event that comes as close to the amount of inspiration and commitment to effecting social impact. It was life-changing.”
Xilinat
At 18 years old, Javier was driven by his father’s diabetes diagnosis to find an affordable, sustainable, healthy alternative to sugar. The product he identified was xylitol, a natural, low-calorie, sweet-tasting alcohol substance. Javier discovered that he could produce it in an affordable and circular process from agricultural waste, and so founded Xilinat. The organisation’s patented fermentation-based process turns wasted corn cobs into a product to target obesity and manage diabetes, whilst also removing the negative carbon emissions from industrial levels of agricultural waste.
The funds provided by Asahi were used across three main areas: technology scale-up, social impact implementation, and digital marketing. The first area, scaling up the technologies, enabled Xilinat to double its capacity for production, and the amount of agricultural waste it is able to upcycle. The fermentation process, which in 2019 sequestered 17 tonnes of CO2, was able to sequester 34 tonnes in 2021. This greater scale also increased their impact on farmers, almost doubling the number of partnerships to 13 farmers and their families, increasing their income.
In terms of strategy, the guidance from his mentors has been vital. The team at Xilinat were initially focused on the larger scale, committed to growing across the entire supply chain. However, with mentorship Javier re-focussed his attention to a single aspect, increasing quality substantially, which, as a result, had a much greater impact on sales. Asahi was also able to provide essential support during the pandemic. Their Challenge Partner kindly delayed the provision of funds to a time when Xilinat was able to rent an affordable laboratory in a university. This flexibility and understanding from Asahi meant they were able to pause, survive the pandemic, and then accelerate with the funds throughout 2021 once they had more freedom to grow.
- 100% increase in annual carbon sequestration from the fermentation process
- Partnering with 50 farmers and families to monetise their agricultural waste
Working with multiple mentors in Asahi, Javier was taken aback by how consistent and well-integrated inspiration and leadership is throughout the company. This helped to develop his understanding in various different areas, such as marketing, finance, and research. The leaders at Asahi reiterated his belief that a leader needed to inspire those around them, an ambition Javier has taken on himself.
“Not even mentioning the grant, working with Asahi was transformational in terms of learning from a huge international company, how they work to scale up, enter new markets, and create new strategies.”
How to use to the SDG Tracker
Search for projects by the following case study categories:
- Ambassador-led Initiatives: qualitative and quantitative analysis of the social impact of projects which are led by young leaders in the Community.
- Business for Social Good: written case studies for initiatives ran by corporate partner organisations, led by young Ambassadors/employees.
- Leadership Stories: short biographies of Ambassadors who are growing into influential leaders for social good in some of the world’s largest companies.
- Covid Young Leaders Fund: detailed case studies of grant recipients from One Young World's 2020 funding opportunity for projects tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Lead2030: detailed case studies of the Lead2030 award winners and how their projects have generated impact from participating in the programme.