How Millennials Are Stepping Up To Address UN Post 2015 Agenda Through Entrepreneurship And Innovation
We the people. These mark the first three words of the United Nations Charter. With over half the world’s population being under 30 today, millennials represent 1.8 billion of our world’s human workforce. Fearless, ambitious, and entrepreneurial young minds around the world are leveraging technology to build creative solutions to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Will they succeed at building a global movement that will revolutionize international development? They certainly are not afraid to dream big.
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” — Abraham Lincoln
June 26th, 2015 marked the 70th Anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter in San Francisco. To celebrate this historic moment, Blake MacDonald and I invited 50 millennial innovators, youth leaders, and UN officials to gather on the 25th of June at the Fairmont Hotel to discuss the role of millennials in addressing sustainable development goals through entrepreneurship and innovation.
With over 80 % of millennials living in developing countries, the key question is; how can we lower the barriers to youth entrepreneurship? How can we equip youth with access to the tools, education and resources that will utilize their full entrepreneurial potential? Imagine if all young people were given a voice and were empowered to act on their talent, passion, and dreams to build a brighter future. This would unleash an unseen amount of potential in the next generation.
Here is how millennials are disrupting the way we think about the upcoming global goals today:
Ensuring environmental sustainability
Boyan Slat, a twenty year old Dutch entrepreneur is the founder of the Ocean Cleanup. Backed by over 100 scientists and engineers, he developed the worlds first feasible, cost effective method to remove half of the Great Pacific garbage patch by 2023. In 2014 he launched the most successful nonprofit crowd-funding campaign in history. With the support of over 38,000 funders from 160 countries, Boyan raised US$ 2 million in less than hundred days to conduct further pilot studies, bringing him a step closer in acting on his dream.
Combating Malaria
John Lewandowski, a twenty five year old entrepreneur is the founder of DDG. He has a bold dream to combat malaria and is confident that he can do so with the use of refrigerator magnets and a laser pointer saving millions of lives a year. His portable low cost device allows for the early detection of malaria in just a few seconds using only one drop of blood. With the cost of performing a test being as low as $0.025, Disease Diagnostics Group has the potential to empower doctors in rural areas to deliver accurate reading, allowing for early detection of malaria and intervention in developing countries. Working in collaboration with the Harvard School of Public Health, MIT and Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, his venture’s innovation went through thorough clinical studies, and has won over 1.5 million USD in awards and fellowships. John was named among the Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers.
Global access to vaccines
Nanxi Liu, graduated in 2012 and is the founder of Nanoly Bioscience, a biotech startup which develops a polymer that allows vaccines to survive without refrigeration. The World Health Organization currently estimates 25% of global vaccine waste is a result of failure to properly refrigerate the vaccines. Every year there are over 26 million children who do not receive immunization with the result that 2.1 million people die annually from vaccine-preventable diseases. Growing up in rural China with no electricity, Nanxi understands the importance of making vaccines accessible. With the help of her technology she has the potential to impact millions of children worldwide who are currently not being vaccinated as a result of living in areas deprived of electricity.
Early Detection of Cardiovascular Disease
Connor Landgraf and Jason Bellet are the co-founders of Eko Devices, an intelligent stethoscope attachment which is often referred to as the Shazam for heartbeats — detecting the slightest murmors in heartbeats through a simple smartphone application. Cardiovascular disease affects 1 in 4 of the world’s population. Their technology has the potential to empower doctors and healthcare providers with a simple diagnostic tool, eliminating the need for expensive technology; thus bringing 21st century healthcare to the developing world. The Eko team recently became the youngest team to ever file clearance with the FDA.
Physical Mobility
Michal Prywata and Tiago Caires, not yet 25 years old, have built the world’s first brain controlled prostethic. As founders of Bionik Labs, they have built a robotic exoskeleton for patients with physical mobility impairments. The device allows patients to rehabilitate and walk with the help of technology. To date they have raised over $12,000,000 to fund further research. Their innovative device is using advanced algorithms and sensing technology to give paralyzed people who were once in a wheelchair the opportunity for rehabilitation.
Global access to vision care
The World Health Organization currently estimates that 517 million people suffer from vision loss, creating severe economic and educational implications on communities. Many children often have trouble seeing the chalkboard. Daxal Desai graduated in 2014 and is the co-founder of Eyecheck, a simple technology which makes eye care mobile and accessible. The smartphone application empowers doctors with the ability to provide accurate prescriptions by taking two pictures with a mobile phone. The venture’s goal is to make vision services available to millions of people, allowing them to live happier, more productive lives.
Corporations are stepping up to empower youth with the resources to tackle global goals
Corporations like IBM see tremendous potential in giving youth the tools to tackle global issues by leveraging technology. IBM wants to provide youth with access to tools, resources and education, pledging to educate over 1 million young people around the world on big data through their recently launched Big Data University. Through their platform they want to enable everyone around the world who has access to the internet and a phone to take full advantage of free quality education. This way they hope to empower millennials to further act on their entrepreneurial dreams and address global challenges.
Encourage youth to dream big!
On June 1st, International Children’s Day, thousands of children around the world visualized and shared their dreams for the future as part of the #TweetaDream campaign. With over half of the world’s population being young people under the age of 30, we cannot ignore the dreams of youth. Our future depends on the aspirations of the next generation, lets unite in empowering them to dream big!
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
