Unleashing it at UNLEASH!

This November I attended UNLEASH — Innovation Lab for the SDGs. Out of 18,000 applicants, 1000 changemakers from 162 countries were chosen to further efforts for achieving the SDGs. I was a part of SDG 4 — Quality Education track.

UNLEASH is a global innovation lab that brings together people from all over the world to transform 1,000 personal insights into hundreds of ideas, and build lasting global networks around the Sustainable Development Goals. UNLEASH is a non-profit started in 2017. Since 2017, UNLEASH has been held in Denmark and in Singapore. In 2019, UNLEASH took place in Shenzhen in China.

UNLEASH sources global top talents with the vision and drive required to disrupt conventional solutions and create a better and more sustainable world. It accelerates next generation ideas and partners talents with individuals, companies, NGOs, government agencies, investors and foundations that are at the forefront of innovation and global development.

When coming to Shenzhen I was expecting an environment which would foster innovation and openness — and I wasn’t wrong! In the 10 days of UNLEASH I met a lot of enterprising youth coming from very diverse cultures from different parts of the world, all striving to mobilize efforts in favour of the SDGS. Driven by a collective passion, brimming with the rippling energies of youth, we not only developed solutions that will address the SDGs, but also developed lasting friendships and a commitment to give back.

I am very glad to have been a part of such an amazing community. It was particularly rewarding getting the opportunity to address one of the pressing problems in the current context of Bangladesh and formulating a solution to provide access to quality education for the vulnerable population. The solution we developed sought to address the lack of a context-specific education curriculum for the Rohingya adolescents, leading to low attendance in schools.