553 participants, 54 countries and more than 250 organization! An amazing event for learning, knowledge sharing and networking comes to an end. When I was initially interviewed by my host organization “Making Cents International” I was wondering that they need my expertise to organize a three-day global event for which I have to plan and work for a whole year. I was really amazed how is it possible that a whole team works continuously for 365 years to successfully execute a three-day program. When I starting my work in January I observed that our team has the most workload and we are the busiest people in our office. My supervisor was always running for important meetings with the sponsors and other stakeholders. My colleague Anna, the summit champ was always up to a new task and overviewing all the summits components.
The Global Youth Economic opportunities summit was one of the best-organized events of its kind as far as my experience. As communications and outreach coordinator, I coordinated with participants and speakers along with the social media and email blasts/campaigning. We planned all the minute details of the event way month ahead of the event which turns into a smooth execution of a global event.
Dr. Mark Bracket (Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence) session on emotional intelligence and the role of behavioral skills in the economic success of young people was one of the best plenary sessions of the summit. He explained the significance of emotional intelligence to create more economic opportunities. He spoke about the expressions of feelings and emotions are a tough job and sometimes we cannot find the exact word that actually depicts our feelings.
A session on failure festival/celebration was very inspiring and knowledgeable. Failure is the F word in international development and people don’t like to talk about their failures and just want to highlight their success. However, failure is the first step to one’s success and the lessons you learn from failure can lead you to the path of success.
18 Young YSEALI fellows across Asia attended the summit and also an evening reception with “Ahmad Alhendawi”, the first United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth. He spoke about the role of youth to achieve the SGD’s by 2030. The 10th anniversary of Global Youth Economic Opportunities Summit was an amazingly successful event and I witnessed the hard work of our team for the whole year was fruitful.
