Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

On 19 May 2017, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop announced a partnership between InnovationXchange, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Atlassian Foundation to deliver the Youth, Skills and Workforce of the Future challenge. The challenge aimed to seek new ideas supporting education, skills development and job security for youth in developing countries.

The Australian aid program was offering up to $1.4 million to support ideas generated through the program, and as Australia’s aid program has a focus on the Indo-Pacific region there was a desire to encourage a larger number of ideas from and for this region.

InnovationXchange engaged Data Knowhow’s Lisa Cornish to support a target of 50 high quality ideas supporting the workforce of the future in the Indo-Pacific region. A short timeframe of less than two month was allocated to achieve this, with Lisa identified as a suitable partner due to her journalism skills and existing links with Australia’s aid sector and development work in the region.

Data Knowhow’s Lisa Cornish was engaged to support the promotion, communication and engagement of the challenge within Australia and throughout DFAT’s network and worked collaboratively with Atlassian and MIT networks as well as innovation labs through Impact Hub.

Lisa liaised with staff from DFAT, project stakeholders, Australian NGOs, media, startup networks, universities and international groups of interest to encourage widespread awareness, support and contributions to the challenge within the Indo-Pacific region.

Lisa’s work included:

• development of communications kits outlining the purpose of the challenge with material to encourage involvement of the challenge by email, social media, in newsletters and with media;

• speeches for the Foreign Minister, ambassadors and high commissioner;

• media releases for high commissions, embassies and partner organization;

• imagery and advertising materials for social media;

• video editing and production;

• event photography;

• development of high quality posters for advertisements and project information; and

• development of and end of project report and assessment.

At the conclusion of the challenge on August 1, almost 500 applications had been received -- and well in excess of 50 were from and for the Indo-Pacific region.

The 20 finalists, selected to pitch their ideas in New York during UN General Assembly week, more than half were ideas focusing in the Indo-Pacific. Teams pitching will include representatives from Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. And the sectoral representation will be diverse -- not-for-profits, startups, education and IT industry are among the finalists.

The final outcomes of the challenge will see and important investment of the Australian aid program in the Indo-Pacific region, including the development of startups, sharing of ideas and improved outcomes for the workforce of the future.

Youth, Skills and Workforce of the Future challenge