Exploring the promise of Youth-led Social Innovation
Kosovo’s Annual Activate Talk
PRISTINA, 30 November 2015 – UNICEF’s Kosovo Innovations Lab will hold its annual Activate Talk event, promoting the innovative technologies and initiatives developed by the Lab and highlighting the work of young social innovators involved in the Lab’s programme.
Globally, Activate Talks bring together youth, innovators, experts and thought-leaders to showcase the latest solutions and to rethink and rework how we can deliver results for the most vulnerable and marginalized children. Key note speakers for the 2015 Activate Talk event in Pristina will include UNICEF, the Chairman of Encouraging Young Entrepreneurs and young social innovators. Guests will be able to meet and discuss with youth leaders and discover their vision and their work within their communities.
The event will also mark the Innovations Lab fifth anniversary presence in Kosovo and the launch of the new partnership with the global financial institution ING.
Kosovo has one of the youngest populations in Europe, with nearly 50% of the population under 25 years of age and 19% between 15-24 years-old. 35% of young people between 15-24 years old are neither employed nor in school. Furthermore, 55% of youth in Kosovo feel they ‘little’ or ‘no’ opportunity to influence decision making around issues that are important to them or that are directly affecting their lives. A strong sense of incapacity and unimportance prevails amongst all young people, but is particularly strong in young people who are part of marginalised groups including young people with disabilities and those from Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities.
To address these concerning figures, the UNICEF Kosovo Innovations Lab seeks to empower adolescents and youth and advances the use of technology and explores how to effect change through communication to a new generation of rights holders.
In this note about the Lab, Joshua Harvey, Innovations Lab Manager highlights that “The Lab is a leader in the global UNICEF network of labs that brings innovative principles, methods, and tools to the local context where they are harnessed by our partners to realize the rights of children.” UNICEF Innovations Lab in Kosovo will continue to create new spaces and innovative ways for realizing children’s rights through 21st century tools and approaches.
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UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere.
For more information about UNICEF and its work for children, visit www.unicef.org.
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About Innovations Lab
A unit of UNICEF Kosovo, the Innovations Lab, which started in Kosovo in 2010, is home to a multidisciplinary team working across sectors and fields to identify methods, partners, technologies, and tools that promise to unlock new uses of information and technology, effect change through communication, and empower youth to be agents of change and partners in our pursuit of a world more fit for children. The Lab’s programmes are implemented in cooperation with NGO Peer Educators Network (PEN). www.kosovoinnovations.org
