Innovative and socially motivated youth can play positive role in solving most of
Pakistan’s socio-economic problems and steer the country to prosperity, said
experts and participants of “International Youth Conference on Social
Innovations”. Experts also underlined the need to develop systematic way of
harnessing new ideas and innovations to transform the society.

The
two-days conference was organized by 180 Degrees Consulting Pakistan, an
international student run consultancy associated with the University of Sydney
Business School and the
Australian Graduate School of Management.  The conference brought together
Pakistani youth, international experts and entrepreneurs from around the world
to share experiences and knowledge on social innovation. Some other
organization who supported the event included Islamabad based policy think
tank, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), a local NGO, Youth
Impact and ‘Challenge:Future’ a Slovenia-based think tank that engages the
global youth in creating innovative solutions to global problems.

Speaking
as Chief Guest at closing session, Arifa Khalid, Member Punjab Assembly
underpinned her hopes on youth and called them the true ‘agents of change’. “It’s
the youth who through their passion, motivation and innovation can solve grave
problems in the society and steer Pakistan to prosperity in these difficult
times,” she added.

Nathaniel
Ware, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and founding CEO of 180 Degrees Consulting said
that social entrepreneurship is a cross between business and charity which
allows making money while helping others. It creates a “win-win” situation for
both the entrepreneur and the people, he added.

Bistra
Kumbaroska, Community Manager at ‘Challenge:Future’ talked of dismal
unemployment scenario and said, global youth is going to face increasing
unemployment in the days to come. “There would be only 300 million jobs
available against the 1.2 billion youth entering into job markets in next ten
years, “he added. He also briefed  participants on the work done by his
organization which engages youth by providing them access to funds and
expertise in pursuit of solving global problems such as global warming and
unemployment.

Earlier,
chairing the proceedings on first day Ambreen Waheed, Executive Director of
Responsible Business Initiative (RBI) underlined the need to foster social
entrepreneurship to challenge existing inefficient development paradigms in
Pakistan. She said an idea can only translate into change if there is sheer
investment of passion, resources, integrity, information about the expected
outcomes, incentives to support the idea and finally involvement of relevant
stakeholders.

Adnan
Talib, Researcher at SDPI and an Alumni of 180 Degrees Consulting Australia was
of the view that innovative ideas end up in a pile of papers because they are
not marketed to the right people in the right way. He urged youth with
innovative ideas to approach relevant corporate leaders, think tanks and policy
makers to generate an interest in their innovations. “To turn ideas into policy
influences, it’s necessary to think in terms of market and community relevance;
applicability; socio-economic context and the overall policy environment,” he
added. He also emphasized that ideas must be backed by research and must not
based on sweeping generalizations or assumptions.