by Rylie Roco
Last year, on September 23, 2019, 735 students from all around the Philippines went to the Philippine International Convention Center. They did this to attend the Youth Innovation Challenge (YIC) 2019, an event based on innovation, to listen to inventive people, and help each other solve real-world problems.
YIC is an event where people listen to CEOs and founders from top companies. They are then sent to different rooms, grouped with each other, and given a problem. Each of these groups are told to solve these problems with design-thinking. They then present their ideas to the rest of the room, that have other groups that are also trying to solve the exact same problem.
According to Teacher Bea Agbayani, who is part of the organizing committee, YIC was made “to give our Grade 6-12 students the unique opportunity to lead and engage with experts in the country and learn to be innovators. In the past, our Upper School students would engage in international challenges such as the Global Enterprise Challenge, TTBiz, Harvard Model Congress, etc. We want to bring the experience to the Philippines and do not want to limit the opportunity to a few MI Kids, rather we want to give ALL MI Kids the opportunity to gain the mindset and toolset for innovation, thus the reason for spearheading the YIC. YIC aims to empower the youth to contribute to national development through creating innovative solutions to shared problems they face.”
Ever since COVID-19 materialized, Multiple Intelligence International School has used Google Meet as a form of communication. This time, Zoom is going to be used to communicate with the rest of the students entering YIC. They will then use the new breakout room feature in Zoom to be sent to the rooms that correspond to the eight different intelligences. This YIC is going to help solve the problems of quarantine, hence the name “Innovation In The New Normal.” Also, this YIC is going to last two days instead of one.
This year, there will be new speakers, such as:
- Ron Baetiong, the host of the top business podcast in the Philippines, Hustleshare Podcast, and the creator of ChatbotPH.
- Katrina Chan, the director of the QBO Innovation Hub.
- Sarah Torres, the co-founder of Out Of The Box Media.
- Pierre Carlo Curay, the co-founder and CEO of Insight Supply Chain Studios.
- Jay Jaboneta, the managing director at Nexus Innovation Labs at De La Salle Lipa.
We will also have new problems for all of the different 8 intelligences:
- For Linguistic, find out a way to stop fake news.
- For Naturalist, find out a solution to floods, and how we could make cities more resilient to floods.
- For Musical, think about a business that could earn musicians money for making songs.
- For Bodily-Kinesthetic, think of a way to keep PWDs fit while they’re in quarantine.
- For Interpersonal, create a new social media app.
- For Intrapersonal, make a solution to mental health delivery.
- For Spatial, make a business that makes sure artists can still do their job during the pandemic.
- For Logical-Mathematical, think of a business that gives money to small businesses that were founded during quarantine, and gives money to the reopening of businesses.
The purpose of YIC is to introduce design thinking as a tool for students, to expand their brains. These same students could use the skills they learned at YIC in actual situations to contribute to national development. These same students could also be speakers in future YIC events.