Young Change Agents
Last week some of our Year 10 Commerce students had the opportunity to participate in the Young Change Agents program.
Young Change Agents is a design-thinking based social entrepreneurship program that encourages students to see problems as opportunities. This week, the students will participate in a social entrepreneurship program, a 2.5 day "hackathon style" workshop where teams of 4-5 work to identify problems within their communities then ideate, validate, prototype and pitch a social enterprise idea to a judging panel.
By teacher Jayant Prakash
The students worked as a team and came up with a social enterprise idea and pitched their ideas to a panel of judges. It was a two and a half day program (5-7 June). In two days students warmed up their critical thinking, creativity and decision making, identified the possible strengths and challenges in our community. Each group created their own vision, explored the root causes of the issues, validated the idea, created a prototype model and pitched their presentation to the judges.
The winning team was “Brighter Futures” that designed a business that would make a positive social impact- helping homeless people with life skills, literacy and numeracy and computer skills so they can enter the workforce. The business to be run solely through donations from the public of clothing items which would then be sold at a reasonable price to anyone. The judges- Dr Rajeev Sharma (Lecturer-CDU), DHS Principal- Jill Hazeldine and Bel Cook (Digitally Buzzed) were very impressed with the high level presentation by all the groups- all done in just two days. Well done to the students of the winning team - Brighter Futures (Eugenia Ikonomou, Lisa Martinson, Eleni Rigas, and Evy Tsopanoglouy). The team has a chance to take part in the Regional Pitch presentation. Students were awarded with prizes and certificates.
Student feedback:
The Young Change Agents 2.5-day program was challenging in the beginning, as we didn’t think we had what it took to create a social enterprise. But with the help of our mentors, we overcame our challenges and created our company ‘Brighter Futures’. This opportunity allowed us to build our team working skills and to be creative and express our ideas. Overall, we had a great experience in the Young Change Agents program while developing new skills such as learning all of the components of creating a social enterprise.
Eugenia Ikonomou, Evy Tsopanoglou, Eleni Rigas, Lisa Martinson
It was a fun and short activity to do as an assessment task. The activities gave me the chance to work with students I don’t usually work with and allowed me to step out of my comfort zone.
Claudine Cainghog
I felt like I was able to develop and learn new skills such as critical thinking, strong communication with team members, and leading during this program. Being able to be part of this program had made me feel more confident in choosing to major business as my future career. Would love the chance to do it again.
Vanessa Kong
Over the course of the 2 and a half days, I have learnt a lot about social enterprises and what it takes to run a business that will positively impact our community. Although the journey was stressful and many problems arose, we were able to overcome them with successful results. Along the way I developed many skills that will benefit me in the future. This program encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone and experience things that can’t be experienced anywhere else.
Evelyn Rionata
