In efforts to discover promising young people and provide them with opportunities to work together to serve others over their lifetimes, Rise Global Winners has begun grooming adolescents from public secondary schools in Lagos State.
In an event held at Radisson Hotel, Ikeja-Lagos State recently, the initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt had students between ages 15 to 17 from eight secondary schools groomed on how to register and the benefits of participating in the Rise Global Challenge.
Fawzy Damole, communication manager at Ingressive for Good, an African non-profit organisation that focuses on poverty alleviation by providing education and technological resources to young Africans told journalists that Rise organised the event to reach the people that need it most.
“We have like 300,000 plus people in our community, but we are very excited to be doing this partnership with Rise because the target is the younger people from 15 to 17 years, we say, ‘catch them young’, we like the idea, we catch them young to give them a better opportunity to impact the world positively.
So far we have over 1,500 applications, we are still reaching out to people in religious organisations, teachers and leaders in secondary schools just for them to get the students’ attention.
Aside from that, we are also helping students to complete their applications because we know that they need guidance,” she said.
Read also: Schmidt Futures urges teens to apply for 2023 Rise Global Challenge
Korede Akinsete, communications manager at Rise Futures, who addressed the audience on behalf of Build Nigeria, a non-profit organisation that aims to democratize access to world-class colleges for high-achieving, low-income and first-generation Nigerian youth, explained to the students via the online medium what Rise initiative is all meant for them.
“Rise is an initiative that finds and connects talented people across fields, generations and geographies to harness their collective skills for public benefit,” she explained.
She highlighted the fact that talent is equally distributed but unfortunately, opportunities are not, hence she enjoined the students and parents to maximise the opportunity.
Akinsete further explained that by identifying emerging talent across all disciplines, Rise supports people and their ideas as they work towards solutions that cannot even imagine today.
According to the renowned communication expert, “The Rise global community includes applicants, Rise Global Winners, teachers, partners, and other organisations that support them in serving others.
Using technology, our networks, and other tools, Rise invites its community members with common interests to connect, collaborate and make service commitments to solve complex problems facing humanity.”
The following schools attended the awareness and sensitization event, Abibat Mogaji Millennium Senior Secondary School; Keke Senior High School; Government Senior College Agege; and Lagos Baptist Senior Secondary School.
Others are Lagos Baptist Senior College; Sanngo Senior Secondary School, Agege; State Senior High School, Oyewole; and Vetland Senior Grammar School. All the schools were accompanied by their teachers.
The students were briefed on the benefits offered to Rise Global Winners may include the following; specific benefits will vary from year to year as new opportunities become available.
Some of the benefits are; a residential summit that offers a winner one fully funded in-person residential summit with other members of the Rise Global Winner cohort. Attendance at this summit is required to maintain Global Winner status.
The higher education scholarships offer a four-year, post-secondary education scholarship, including tuition and a living stipend, based on need and where not already covered by financial aid.
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Others are; funding for ideas on a competitive basis that allows a candidate to apply for funding to experiment with innovative ideas to address major problems in local communities or around the world, ranging from seed money to start a social enterprise to a grant for a non-profit. Funds will be available competitively to winners and finalists.
Network matching offers participants access to a network of other Global Winners, community members and partner organizations, as well as career development programming, delivered primarily through technology.
Abigail Ojonugwa Labija from Gboko in Benue State and Orimoloye Moyinoluwa David from Oniru in Lagos State were among 100 newly announced 2023 Rise Global Winners.
Labija made it to the list by developing a prototype of a water purification system that can provide more access to clean drinking water for her community during the drier months of the year.
David created a mobile application for local supermarkets that offers consumers a chance to purchase goods remotely, thereby reducing in-store congestion and improving store marketing.
