New mentoring programme for youth to develop solutions to social issues

Under a new mentoring programme, young people in Singapore are encouraged to come up with solutions to social issues such as climate change and the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on jobs.

- Syarafana Shafeeq

The Gen2050 youth action programme, launched on June 5, will provide mentoring through structured modules to the first batch of 100 students from institutes of higher learning.

In one of the modules, participants can receive up to $5,000 in funding for each project from the National Youth Council (NYC), which will run the programme with KPMG in Singapore and the Institute of Public Relations of Singapore.

At the launch event, NYC chief executive David Chua said that even if the projects do not come to fruition, "just the fact that (the youth) take action and go halfway is also a good outcome. That seeds something for the future that they can come to again, to take action in other ways and forms".

"They will still gain invaluable lessons, connections and insights that will shore up their confidence," he added.

Gen2050 has four modules, where experts will cover identifying pressing social issues and analysing the scope of the problem; creating proposals and measuring the effectiveness of potential solutions; managing stakeholders; and creating compelling pitches.