Out of thousands of applicants from Pakistan, 3 LUMS students and 1 student from IBA won the Telenor Youth Forum. Sajawal Waseem (BSc Management, 2018), Mehroze Munawar (BSc Management, 2016), and Dawar Hameed (BSc Political Science, 2016) were the winning contestants.
From the final 4 finalists, groups of two will be sent to Telenor Youth Forum in Norway – while also getting the chance to participate in the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony – and to the Telenor Youth Forum Asia in Thailand.
The Telenor Youth Summit, in partnership with the Nobel Peace Centre, provides a great opportunity for tomorrow’s social entrepreneurs to engage with experts, industry leaders and fellow youth. It’s a place to share ideas and discuss with peers how connectivity can improve lives, fuel growth and foster cross-dialogue. The three day conference in Oslo, Norway, is where young people come together to explore the transformative power of mobile and digital communication.
The participants had been originally asked to choose from the 15 UN (United Nations) SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and explain why their choices will make the most impact in Pakistan. After being shortlisted they were asked to prepare projects which can be implemented with the help of Telenor to achieve those SDGs.
The competition was judged on projects which will help in the implementation of United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Pakistan. Dawar and Mehroze's projects were on "Ensuring Quality and Inclusive Education" (UN SDG #4) and Sajawal's was on "Achieving Gender Equality" (UN SDG #5).
The judging panel consisted of Ms. Areej Khan (Head of Corporate Communications & Responsibility, Telenor Pakistan), Ms. Salma Jafri (Head, Google Business Groups Pakistan) and Mr. Khurram Zafar (Director, LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship).
While commenting on his experience, Dawar said, “I had been working as coordinator for Hum-Aahang (a LUMS MGSHSS project) and the experience gained from running various low-cost Education programmes through it in Lahore had been very helpful. Plus, the exceptional insight and research from Dr. Ahsan Rana (teacher of Contemporary Social Policy at LUMS) has been a great source of guidance in dealing with issues of Education and inequality.”
Talking about her experience, Mehroze said, “TYF provided me with the opportunity to interact with young leaders enthusiastic about challenging social problems through technology. It also provided me the platform to share my own ideas on bridging empowerment divide through digital literacy and its importance for lifelong self-learning. It was truly an incredible experience. I'm one of the two people representing Pakistan at Telenor Youth Forum this year and I believe my LUMS experience has a lot to do with my success. LUMS provides you with an environment where you not only learn how to transform audacious ideas into scalable ventures but also the value of collaboration - the two most important skills that you need in life to create social impact.”
