Yunus Festival of Young Ideas 2015

The Yunus Social Business Health Hub (YSBHH) developed a principle for the practice of student participation for use in developing and implementing community and stakeholder engagement processes to help with better decisions and solutions that reflect the interests and concerns of potentially affected people and entities. YSBHH principles were developed with broad international input to identify those aspects of engagement that cross national, cultural and religious boundaries. In that process, YSBHH’s Work Experience Placement” (WEP) program recognises and encourages projects and students who are highly motivated for generation of innovative new ideas for Social Businesses.

In November 2015, the YSBHH successfully ran the “Yunus Festival of Young Ideas” which was a Work Experience Placement (WEP) program on the occasion of Yunus Week, an initiative of UNSW’s School of Public Health and Community Medicine. The WEP aimed to provide workplace opportunities to high school students to learn practical aspects of Social Business concepts and principles applied to global social, economic, health and environmental problems. Students received intensive training and had one week to work together in a group, with an assigned mentor from UNSW Faculty or the Grameen Australia, and come up with innovative social business ideas.

A winner was selected from the competing teams by a panel of judges from UNSW and the Grameen Australia.