I DARE YOUth
A YLAI Reverse Exchange Project: Dare to dream. Dare to create. Dare to achieve.
Did you know?
A longitudinal study commissioned by NASA showed that 98% of children under five years old score in the genius category on creative potential tests, but only 2% of them maintained that score through to adulthood (the study was replicated multiple times and yielded similar results).
Some suggest that traditional schooling is behind this unfortunate change. Teachers, timebound by curricula and large class sizes, often discourage divergent thinking. Schools have neither time nor resources to facilitate creative problem-solving and exploration.
Students who dare to challenge the teacher or to try alternative methods end up being punished. Yet, by punishing mistakes instead of encouraging them, children grow into adulthood with a fear of failure.
But mistakes are par the course for challenging the status quo, finding new opportunities, and creating solutions.
The amazing achievements of humanity are in large part due to our capacity to imagine and create.
From the invention of the under-appreciated flushing toilet, which revolutionised public health as much as comprehensive vaccination programmes, to Thomas Edison’s 10,000 attempts to bring electricity into our homes with the invention of the electric light bulb, creative problem-solving is important to humanity’s advancement.
Technology we take for granted, like LTE and the ability to go live on Instagram, would likely not be possible today if it weren’t for Nikola Tesla and his futuristic ideas for real-time streaming videos almost a century ago in 1926.
Through a series of workshops entitled I DARE YOUth, my YLAI reverse exchange project sought to expose students to entrepreneurial skills, including creative problem-solving.
The highlight of the workshop was the divergent thinking challenge that allowed students to flex their creative problem-solving muscles.
Students were given two unrelated, everyday items and were challenged to work in teams to combine components of the two items to create a new product.
They named their new product and presented 30-second ads that explained the function of the new product, its target audience, and the problem it solved for its target audience.
What new innovation could you develop from a shopping cart and a steering wheel?
How could you combine and transform a wheel chair and a fire extinguisher into a new product?
At the workshop, the students also learnt about local entrepreneurs — including YLAI alumni like Alpha Sennon — whose current projects are tackling major challenges in our country like food security, and about global entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, who work to disrupt life as we know it with technology.
A key objective of I DARE YOUth was to encourage the students to dream big and to go out and achieve their dreams.
Students had the opportunity to interact with real-life entrepreneurs with backgrounds similar to theirs — past students of their schools (like another YLAI alum, Mel Gabriel) — who would have sat in the same classrooms, worn the same school uniforms, and who probably also hated getting homework.
They dared to dream big dreams and are currently working on achieving them through their entrepreneurial pursuits.
In addition, the students had the opportunity to have their entrepreneurship questions answered by my YLAI fellowship host Charles P. Smith, Co-founder of SAP! Beverages in Vermont, U.S. and 2018 Shark Tank Contestant, who visited Trinidad to participate in the reverse exchange project.
You know you’ve done something right when teens stay back long after school has been dismissed to share their business ideas with you.
My dream is to take I DARE YOUth to the next level by starting entrepreneur clubs in high schools where students take the lead in identifying problems at school or in their community and work together to create sustainable solutions that they can bring to market.
Putting my money where my mouth is, I am daring to pilot a first run of the entrepreneur club in the upcoming academic year.
Kristle Gangadeen
Trinidad & Tobago
YLAI 2017 Alum
