WE Day

View online at winnipegfreepress.com/publications Thursday, October 25, 2018 Winnipeg Free Press Special Feature WE and RBC launch young entrepreneurs Despite their drive, determination and capability, Canada's youth will soon find it increasingly difficult to navigate and succeed in an ever-evolving job market. Along with our youth-focused partners, RBC ® is focusing our capabilities, assets and resources to ensure youth have greater access to skills development, networking opportunities and work experience. Because when Canada's youth succeed, we all succeed. RBC Future Launch. Empowering Canadian youth for the jobs of tomorrow. THE WORLD OF WORK IS CHANGING. WE NEED OUR YOUTH TO SUCCEED. SKILLS DEVELOPMENT NETWORKING WORK EXPERIENCE ®/TM Trademark(s) of Royal Bank of Canada. VPS102329 119508 (08 /2018) By WE staff At 15, Asalah Youssef is already using her tech savvy and passion for social justice to launch a smartphone app and website that she hopes will make health services more accessible to low-income people. She's also proving that young people can become social entrepreneurs, given the opportunity, skills and training, with some help from WE and RBC. Called e Radical and Revolutionary Place (R&R Place), Asalah's app and platform will enable low-income people, including students and seniors, to access counselling, dental care, optometry and physiotherapy— health services usually not provided by the government and often prohibitively expensive—at a reduced rate. Her app taps into business owners and providers who are willing to provide these services at a discount, or even for free. e Grade 10 student, who attends the Langley Fine Arts School in Langley, BC, was inspired by her mother, a portrait photographer, who had offered her services at a greatly reduced rate to a university student who couldn't afford to pay full price for a shoot. Her mom had been inspired to do this after coming across a quote on line, which read: "If it's inaccessible to the poor, it's neither radical not revolutionary." at's now Asalah's mission statement. Her idea got a huge boost when she was selected as one of three outstanding youth applicants to take part this year's inaugural WE are Social Entrepreneurs Incubation Program, an initiative of RBC Future Launch, at the WE Incubation Hub in Toronto in August. e WE Incubation Hub is housed at WE's Global Learning Centre and is designed to provide young entrepreneurs like Asalah with innovation and entrepreneurship skills to bring their ideas to life. "RBC began its important, multifaceted partnership with WE in 2010 with the ultimate goal of helping young people make positive impacts in their communities," says Jennifer Tory, chief administrative officer, RBC. "RBC's purpose—helping clients thrive and communities prosper— aligns so well with the tenets of the WE philosophy, including the WE Incubation Hub, where young social entrepreneurs can identify the root causes of social issues and apply their passions to create innovative solutions. e skills that WE is helping young people develop are an essential part of empowering our future leaders to transform today's world into tomorrow's possibilities." Erin Blanding, WE's director of global program innovation, says WE has long supported and empowered young people, giving them the tools to make a difference in their communities, locally and globally. She says the WE Incubation Hub is the next step in this journey. She says young people can change the world and become social entrepreneurs, once barriers to opportunity and know-how are removed. "If we think about the amazing people that are already changing the world, they're the ones that typically have less resources—teachers, students, youth who can't vote yet, non-profit organizations—these are the folks who against all odds are shifting cultures and coming up with ideas to change the world. Imagine if they were able to have the skills, the support, mentorships and guidance that this hub will provide." Asalah has huge hopes for the R & R app, which she compares to Groupon, the discounting service platform, but for social good. As a result of her participation in the program and one-on-one mentorship from industry experts and innovators, she now has a developed business plan that she has successfully pitched to several investors. Asalah hopes her app will be available for consumer use by next year. She says attending the WE are Social Entrepreneurs program, sponsored by RBC, enabled her to gain many new skills. She says she was incredibly "touched" to be able to try out her business pitch in front of other participants, in attendance at WE's Take Action Camp. "I felt this wonderful energy while I was speaking and saw many smiling faces supporting me. After I finished I had my peers come up to me and tell me how excited they are to see this idea come to life. at really sparked something in me to go home and take my idea to the next level and spread how important it is for us youth to be social entrepreneurs." Fuelled by RBC Future Launch, a national commitment to support youth to better prepare for the future of work through access to skill development, networking and work experiences, WE launched its WE Are Social Entrepreneurs programming in January 2018. High school students attended a day-long conferences in Toronto, BC and Newfoundland, where they examined the root causes of and innovative solutions to issues they cared about. One student from each summit was selected to take part in the Incubation Program in August. e program will expand to 12 regions across Canada during the 2018-19 academic year. Asalah Youssef at WE Day Alberta 2018. (Photo courtesy of WE) Asalah Youssef at WE Day Family Toronto 2018. (Photo courtesy of WE) Katie Hewitt I'm in the back of a rickshaw looking out over India's oldest mountain range through a dusty windshield and marigold garlands. My driver, Laxman, is on delivery, bringing supplies to the local Anganwadi, a health resource centre in Kalthana, one of the WE Villages partner communities in Rajasthan. On my ride- along, I'll meet the families who'll receive the nutrient packets currently stacked at my feet. It's the world's best work assignment—to witness this social impact firsthand, and to write about it for WE. Back at home, I tell a close friend about the trip. "Great," she deadpans, "I push paper around my desk." e vast majority of the global workforce is disengaged—at 85 per cent, according to Gallup. A sense of purpose in life is critical to well-being, and since we spend a good chunk of time on the clock—about 90,000 hours over a lifetime—meaningless jobs can leave us feeling unfulfilled. But quitting your day job to find an ashram would be ludicrous. Keep the job security, health benefits, RRSP contribution and vacation package. en, infuse more purpose into your nine-to-five. Frankly, your current employer should be paying you to bring more meaning to your work. It's in their best interest. A changing workforce now demands transparency and meaningful engagement. Millennials are willing to take a pay cut to work for a company with an authentic social mission—75 per cent of us, in fact. Consumers are more likely to trust brands with stated values, and will pay a premium for responsible products. A strong corporate purpose, one that counts positive social impact among the core metrics for success, has been proven to boost employee engagement and woo customers. WEconomy, by Craig Kielburger, Holly Branson and Marc Kielburger, is about this new way of doing business that fuses purpose and profit. It's their hope and experience that more companies are doing the most they can to make a difference, instead of the least they can get away with. ey make a business case for doing good. For individual employees, that means it's now possible to fashion your own meaningful career makeover. You can be bored at your desk, or you can find a way to bring your personal values to work, be at the forefront of this movement and present a purposeful plan with a firm business strategy behind it. On a large scale, entrepreneurs are founding companies to solve some of the world's biggest problems. Sproxil is a digital labelling system that weeds out toxic formulas from real medicine. Founder Ashifi Gogo read about the death of Nigerian babies after a batch of phony cough syrup made it to market in 2008, passed off by fraudsters to fool worried parents. Gogo's market niche was a health epidemic. After a partnership with big pharma, his product solution saved lives. On a smaller scale, HR reps are convincing companies to offer paid volunteer days, donate leftover food from meetings or partner with a reputable charity. From inside big business, social intrapreneurs are moving the needle, using the resources and scalability of that business to give back. Bring a viable good deed to your boss and increase your social capital, get face time with the higher-ups when you need approvals and make yourself known. It's better for the company and your career. Don't dread the office. Bring your values to work and make it a place you care about. Katie Hewitt is an associate director at WE and editor of WEconomy: You can find meaning, make a living and change the world (Wiley 2018) Are you living your best work life? Get paid to find your purpose. Craig Kielburger, Holly Branson and Marc Kielburger. (Photo courtesy of WE)

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