Inspired to Inspire

Building the practical skills and mindset necessary for the 21st-century workforce is important for teenagers. This is a new educational model where students theoretically learn project conception and planning through MOOCs and practice around a local project. In 2020, we hope to internationally expand and impact students globally.

Inspired to inspire presents a camp that will take secondary school students through an intensive learning experience to build the practical skills and mindset necessary for the 21st-century workforce.

At the camp, classes are going to be conducted based on project conception and planning MOOCs, group reflection, and team projects thus imparting five core skills — critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving, effective communication, and team work, that prepare students to pursue any career— even one that does not yet exist.

After getting the theoretical knowledge from MOOCs, students will have reflection groups to discuss, debate the knowledge gained and how it can be applied in their projects. This will enhance students’ abilities to think critically and creatively, to communicate effectively, and to work well with others.

Students will later apply their knowledge in their projects hence foster better understanding and the ability to apply those concepts to entirely novel situations. This will provide a set of practical and adaptable skills, together with an understanding of how to apply them in the world.

Most importantly, students will be availed with mentorship offered by college students who have practical experience in project management. The benefit of this new approach is rapid and frequent feedback, where students gain insight into their team’s progress frequently and an opportunity to reflect on personal intellectual growth.

Two years after establishing in Rwanda, this program will be expanded to impact youths globally. We shall conduct similar summer camps in Uganda, Belgium, and South Africa, where 40% of 18-24-year-olds are unemployed. This will equip youths with the necessary skills, thus maintaining the country’s productivity by developing the working age population. This will highly contribute to national development and ultimately the global development.

What should I study to secure future employment?

Honestly, no one really knows. But I know the necessary skills and that they can be trained, which is urgent.

Global studies indicate that over 1/3 of employers are unable to recruit due to a lack of adequately trained applicants. The reasons for the mismatch are no mystery. The world of work has been rapidly changing and unpredictable than the education provision which evolves at the pace of a glacier. This keeps us responsible for addressing this issue by a rethink of education itself – its purposes and how we deliver it.

This camp will empower high school students from low socioeconomic backgrounds to be globally competent graduates. Students will learn from beginner-level project conception and planning MOOCs followed by group reflections to build the necessary mindset of resilience, empathy and humility. There will also be an opportunity to practice around a local live project while being guided by a mentor. This process will include identifying a problem, suggesting solutions, prototyping ideas, and pitching them. This will enhance their creativity, critical thinking, team work, and problem-solving, and effective communication skills which are essential for the 21st-century workforce.

This new educational model will give students skills needed to thrive in the 21st century by training them how to think critically, how to solve problems creatively, how to work in teams and effectively communicate. By taking part of this camp, students in grade 10-11 will be introduced to project conception and planning through project management Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS), and get an opportunity to practice around a local live project. Students will work on beginner-level projects, in teams and they will get guidance from experienced college students who will facilitate their progress.

Students will be given very simple weekly tests and given a very short time to answer. We shall therefore revise them and see the difference in point generation and if there are any new ideas. For instance: listing all the uses of a glass of water. - Critical thinking

Problem solving

Creativity and imagination

Mentors will observe the progress and performance that teams will make as the camp continues. Since each team will have at least one mentor, their feedback will be important in knowing how the teams are functioning. - Team work and collaboration

Teams will make weekly presentations about their projects. This will be an opportunity for them to improve their communication skills, and be given feedback from the mentors and peers. The improvement will be more evident by the presentations they make. - Effective oral and written communication

Inspired to inspire is among the few youth empowerment programs, and one of the pioneers to equip teenagers with the 21st-century workforce skills through our unique use of MOOCs to ultimately provide the necessary knowledge to teenagers from low socioeconomic backgrounds.  

Furthermore, no program has high school students an opportunity to work on a project, for an experience like our students are going to get. And most remarkably, this program will be run by youth and for youth thus being more effective in developing problem-solving and critical thinking skills in youths.

MOOCs create 21st-century digital learning environments that will help us to train the 5 core skills while still benefiting from the world’s experts.

Learning from videos is self-centered and provides flexibility to pause and highlight certain points. This helps students to understand important concepts, thus making this learning technology more student centred,

Collaboration is another major hallmark of how MOOCs shall be used in classes. Just after the short videos, students reflect in groups by discussing and debating about the applications of the theory into their projects. This will ultimately increase the levels of interactivity and collaboration.

Students will attend our annual camps which will be free of charge so that no student is restricted from getting ready for the 21st-century workforce by their financial constraints.

Awareness about the camp will be raised through school visits and online advertisement which we believe is an effective way of capturing youth's attention.

I am a college student who has managed to convince a team of fellow Rwandan diaspora college students to work with me in organising this camp. Lack of financial resources is the major challenge that we have, but we hope to apply for various funding opportunities and marketing this program to different investors and organisations that can support us.

The programs that we target are: SOLVE at MIT, Resolution Social Venture Challenge, the Clinton Global Initiative University, and others that we will get to know about. We believe this is a great idea worth investing.

Financial resources: We are want to impact students from all levels of income. This needs funds for arranging all the camp logistics, marketing and the associated preparations.

Experience: Though I have taken project management online courses and volunteered in organising a youth camp, I still need guidance on some of the unseen challenges and how to solve them.

Impact: I need improved ways of measuring impact because the outcomes which are not easily visible or numerical. We, therefore, need more accurate ways of knowing whether the students have gained what we wanted to teach them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snvhw0Odf4c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8slAKNYEqZM

https://www.cnbcafrica.com/videos/2017/04/07/rwandan-prodigy-receives-10-u-s-scholarships/

Inspired to inspire is a youth led program that targets youths from undeserved communities. This brings two major challenges: financial resources and need of experience to run a summer camp.

And this is what I hope to achieve from SOLVE through the networks and mentorship I will be exposed to. The convening will be a marketing opportunity for funding and gaining experts’ ideas on how to improve program. Besides, I will probably meet people from my target countries who can link me with the target students, when the program expands.

IDebate Rwanda

Girl Up Rwanda

Young Achievers Ghana

There is no similar program in Rwanda that addresses our 5 core skills, or with the same pedagogy.