Young Africans will gather in Dubai for five days in a programme aimed at making them ‘think innovation and solutions’ to the challenges in Africa.
Kingsley Bangwell of Youngstars Foundation, on Sunday, said that the event, Think School Africa, would increase the capacity and the hunger of young people to be able to think, innovate and create world class solutions and hybrid ideas that could solve problems confronting Africa.
“It is to make young people begin to see themselves as people that can contribute to solutions.
“There is this tag that every time you talk about young people there is always this negativity. They are tagged to be involved in vices.
“But we are beginning to see that young people have both the capacity and the responsibility to begin to harness their inward potential, to solve problems that confront our society,” he said.
According to him, the programme is not organised to identify problems but to trigger thinking. “Each time you are thinking, you are talking about innovations and you are asking questions about how things could be done better and how problems could be solved”.
Participants are meant to look at the generic module of solving problems irrespective of what kind of sector it is and it would enable them understand the challenges as young people, take responsibility and begin to create solutions.
“It is not about seminar but it is like a technical programme where we are increasing the capacity of young ones and we expect that at the end of the programme they can address issues in their communities.”
In the 2013 programme, key projects triggered up that encouraged people to begin to understand their environment and look at how they can create solutions to gaps. After the event, several individuals have created some solutions for problems in their environment, notable amongst them was an agricultural innovation meant to aid farmers in cassava planting.
The 2014 edition will hold in Dubia for five days and Mr Bangwell pointed out that the choice of Dubai was meant to spark the magic of inspiration and innovation in participants, considering the fact that Dubai’s atmosphere is believed to be able to spark the needed inspiration. Dubai is notable for its world class innovations and mind blowing solutions that had been provided by individuals.
Amongst the facilitators are Professor Part Utomi, Jeff Martins, the ‘American whiz kid’ that worked with late Steve Jobs of Apples and Professor Yamada of NEC Electronics.
After the programme there is a provision for the individuals to be natured for 12 months to hald them grow their ideas.
Bangwell said individuals could register for the event that will hold between November 9 – 15 at the Winchester Hotels, Al Mankhool, Dubai, UAE at www.youngstarsfoundation.org/thinkingschool.