It is happening. Rockhampton youth getting practical entrepreneurial experience while at school. Next week about 40 students from Rockhampton High, North Rockhampton High, Glenmore High and Emmaus College will spend two and half days looking at society’s problems as opportunities for them to solve. It is a kind of Social Entrepreneurship 101. They’ll be empowered with the belief that anyone, including themselves, can make their community and society as a whole better. It does not matter about your lineage, what country you live in, how smart the education system indicates you are, personal wealth or access to lightning fast broadband; anyone can make a positive difference if passion and application is encouraged. Over the 2.5 days students will discuss problems, do a pitch, form teams to tackle solutions to them, then devise the solutions. No, it is not expected they will solve global warming within 2.5 days or how to achieve global harmony but realise that by focussing on issues in their community, perhaps one’s they themselves experience, solutions can be found. I heard of an example in Sydney were a friend of some students attending this program had recently broke a leg. The ambulance had taken quite some time to find him. In this day of being able to track your pizza delivered from shop to your home on your phone, they wondered why one could not track an ambulance. And also determine which hospital would be best for the ambulance to take the patient; factoring in proximity, wait time, available specialist staff. That was the problem they identified and chose to tackle. They learnt the importance of a validation process to demonstrate how their idea could deliver, create and capture value. Information that potential investors would expect. At the end of 2.5 days they hadn’t got the APP up and running, but they had a meaningful insight of what could be done with their idea and more importantly what needs to happen to make this APP a reality. It is what happens after the 2.5 days that we as a community need to encourage. Judges from the Rockhampton program will decide which projects are worthy of further support and will be invited to attend YINC, a social entrepreneurial masterclass, in their own time, not school time. How committed the students are to seeing their idea further developed, will not just be a result of their personal motivation, but also the support the local community provides. If the students have casual jobs will their employer give them the time off? What is their value perception of YINC after talking to their parents/carers? Is the local community ready to really examine the ideas of their youth? Does the local YINC program have the necessary local corporate support to really provide students the complete immersive experience? Hopefully we’ll hear more about the Youth Change Agent program that starts next week, and as we learn more about it, we as a community encourage more of our youth to do these programs.