“It was a really unique experience [at the Global Young Innovators Initiative] to be able to Skype the Nigerian business partners and talk to them through a Nigerian translator. My team and I gained real insight not only into the life of this individual, but learned about their culture first hand, which helped us understand and solve their problems better.”
When I first arrived in Boston, I was excited to see what the week would bring and it didn’t disappoint. I was there for the Global Young Innovators Initiative. Its purpose was to gather bright, young minds from all over the world and have them come together to solve current world problems and come up with plans to try and prevent future ones for our generation. We would take courses that mainly focused on learning about leadership, how to apply it in different situations, and to work in groups to solve different sets of problems. There was also a grass-roots aspect to the conference because the non-profit, Leadership Initiatives, was partnered with the program. Leadership Initiative’s goal is to work with local business partners in Nigeria by helping them solve their business problems to help them prosper and in-tern give back to their surrounding community(s).
On the first day of the conference, the students were split up into four main groups, which were split up into four sub-groups. Each group was to take on a business that was partnered with Leadership Initiatives. There were four businesses to choose from: Fish-Farming, Photography, Tailoring, and Welding. My group decided on partnering with the welding business. So across the four main groups in the conference, there were sixteen sub-groups who each picked a business to work with; four for each business. We were to have two Skype sessions with our business owner in Nigeria. These Skype sessions were to get to know the business owner personally and to find out what problems he/she was encountering so that we could work on viable solutions for them. It was a really unique experience to be able to Skype them and talk to them through a Nigerian translator. My team and I gained a real insight not only into the life of this individual, but learned about their culture first hand, which helped us understand and solve their problems better. At the end of the week, all groups were to present their business model for their Nigerian business partners in front of their peers as well as a panel of judges, including the Founder of Leadership Initiatives, Marshall Bailly. One group for each of the four businesses would be chosen to become intern partners with Leadership Initiatives.
Having been elected as my team leader, I prepared my team for the monumental presentation ahead of us by leading us to do intense research by looking for new solutions from every perspective. I took this approach so that we would have the most comprehensive presentation. We worked from 7am-11pm and then on our own throughout the nights to gather all the information we needed. We were given time at the conference to convene twice a day and that’s where we put our ideas together to come up with viable solutions and create our mock presentation. By the time it came to the presentations, we were nervous like every group but excited nonetheless. All the groups had such polished presentations, which was really a testament to the types of students that were attending the conference and how fortunate I was to be a part of it. We were the last to present, but after we went we all felt great because we knew we had done our best work and left it all on the table.
A few weeks past until I received an email. My group had won and we were offered internships with Leadership Initiatives! It was so surreal that one week at a leadership conference had opened the door to an opportunity like this. Since the summer, I’ve been working with Marshall to put together a customized internship for myself. Within the coming weeks I will be starting my actual work with the business and start solving problems. I hope to not only fix the business’ problems, but help it become a sustainable entity after my time with Leadership Initiatives is finished so it can continue to prosper and give back to the community. This unique opportunity has affected my life only in positive ways since I was introduced to it and I’m looking forward to my future work with Marshall and Leadership Initiatives.