You Need, Therefore You Innovate

Every unsolved problem that you face in your life as a member of a given community means that someone before missed the opportunity to resolve it. As Warren Buffett says: someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
This metaphor is meaningful and relevant, but nowadays, problems need intelligent solutions that are fast to implement and have a long-lasting and sustainable impact. However, innovation usually takes time, and not to mention skills, hard work, ongoing learning, the right environment, and a long list of important components. The cases of persons that come up with genius ideas and develop them in a short period of time are rare. In most of the cases, people struggle with innovation.
Big corporations worldwide need to innovate because of competition. The latter is a key driver of innovation, which results in increased efficiency and high-quality products.
Meanwhile, there are people in developing or emerging countries, who don’t work for companies, because there are no companies in their countries and the unemployment rate is too high. Unemployment causes poverty, which deprives people of having access to necessities such as education, health care, sanitation, decent work, gender equality, etc.
In order to address such major issues, individuals focus on social innovation, which it is driven by a mission or cause and not instant profit and fame.
These persons see success from a different perspective and use diverse metrics to measure it.

How do they innovate?

People tend to associate innovation with many things and not often with poor countries because the concept is often associated with technology and advanced skills. But, innovation is now taking ground in emerging countries because people there face that kind of problems that require creative and sustainable solutions. These people have a lot of talent and potential that they need to discover and skills to learn. The need for solutions inspires them to develop ideas that can have a global impact.
Youth Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition focusses on these people. It provides its large community of members with free online learning about the entrepreneurial process. The campus members learn how to develop an idea, and how to use what already exists for innovating and solving a problem. They create an entrepreneurial mindset that helps them to generate and develop solutions based on social value. Sustainability is the keyword of their initiatives. Take the opportunity to learn and join the YCEC and you will reach your full potential.

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