How to address both unemployment and the need for social innovation?
Below you can see two (shocking) statistics about (un)employment,
as well as youth.
The world needs to
create more than 500 million new jobs by 2020 to provide career opportunities for the currently unemployed; as
well as young people who will be joining the workforce. Source ILO 2012
Young and jobless in
numbers:
75 million
or 12.6%
of young people are
unemployed worldwide
Three times
more likely to be jobless
7.5 million
are not in education or training
Youth unemployment is highest in
North
Africa - 27.9%
and lowest in
East Asia -
9%
Source: ILO 2011
This means that a lot of action and commitment is needed to
address this ticking time bomb.
At the same time, there are many social issues that need to be
tackled and where social innovation is a must.
Social Innovation areas:
- - Poverty
- - Food
- - Water
- - Sanitation
- - Climate change
- - Energy
- - Healthcare
- - Education
- - Transport
- - Cities
So, on one side there
are young people looking for work and on the other side there are many issues,
which need a lot of work.
Therefor, I do have this
‘simple’ idea: To enable young
people to work on these social innovation areas!
What is needed is that
big companies as well as governments support this activity by means of
investments, knowledge transfer, collaboration and mentoring.
What do you think that
is needed to get this initiative of the ground?
Enthusiasm drives Excellence!