Youth Innovation Challenge- Session 1
The finalists of the Youth Innovation Challenge had their first experiential session at The Magic Bus Centre, Karjat on 4th and 5th August, 2018.
The day began with breakfast followed by an ice-breaker session by Nachiket Joshi- the Manager of Centre Programmes at Magic Bus Centre. Due the ice-breakers, he introduced the participants to the concept of thinking out of the box, pushing boundaries and being innovative. In the morning, he talked about the journey Magic Bus has been through, how it was formed, the learnings and how they have reached their position today.
Post this, the teams introduced themselves, their innovations and why they had chosen to work on the issues of gender, sanitation, safety, environment etc. Each team was then given the guidelines to create their own Business Model Canvas. Elsa D’Silva, our Founder, explained each part step-by-step and guided them through the process by giving examples from Safecity and explained how the business model needs to keep changing and being updated as the company grows.
We broke for lunch during which the teams got a chance to meet and get to know one another. Seeing similarities and areas to work on together, they began sharing and pooling of ideas. After lunch, they worked on completing their Business Model Canvas. At tea time, we all converged and each team presented their Business Canvases. During this, all the other teams gave the team that was presenting feedback, points they could improve on, asked questions to clear their doubts etc. After this, all the teams had a bit of free time to explore the grounds and relax.
After dinner, everyone sat together sharing their thoughts from the day, their feelings and experiences related to different cards provided by Nachiket and Elsa. Harnidh Kaur, from the team Shakti Political Action Committee, recited one of her poems which ended the day on the perfect note.
The next day began with a nature walk led by Latha Sankarnarayan, the Founder of Developmatrix. She took us around the grounds of the Magic Bus Centre pointing out interesting things in nature and sharing examples of human innovations and architecture inspired by nature. The participants were enthused after the nature trail and excited for the rest of the day. Post breakfast Nachiket Joshi took charge once more and led the participants into fun group activities.
Tired, exhausted and happy after all the adventurous activities all the participants headed for a shower and lunch. After lunch, we convened for a session by Latha, who spoke about the importance of Communications and gave the teams tips on putting together their Purpose Statement with the help of a hypothetical example and asking each one of them to correct it and give their inputs. Before tea, each team shared their purpose statement and their experience at Karjat in short videos.
Each of the teams tell us about their innovation and their experience at the first session.
- Shakti Political Action Committee
- ORGFeed
- Mehfooz
- Safety Cups
- Makaan Khoj
- VaW Waste Management
- Robot Scavenger
- Platform for Disaster Management
- Zesters
- Mpower Forever
- Rangleela
- Buntaiz
You can check out more pictures here.
