Join four changemakers from diverse organisations as they share stories of projects co-designed and developed with young people. From ideas, through implementation, to impact.

The session will explore how organisations and projects use Human Centered Design to create social impact. Speakers will reflect on the steps they took, how they engaged in the process, lessons they learnt along the way and how they co-designed innovative solutions with young people.

Get inspired and learn from experienced social innovators as they discuss how they are fostering brighter youth futures in this honest and practical session.

Guest Speakers:

Lucy Fraser, Senior Social Innovator, The Australian Centre for Social Innovation
Michael Lim, YLAB Global Manager, Foundation for Young Australians
Maya Marcus, Head of Product and Learning, Young Change Agents
Nanchock Chol, Delivery Lead, "Conversations between Generations" project

Moderator:

Ashley Clarke
Social Innovation Program Manager
CQUniversity

Speaker Bios:

Michael Lim is the Manager at YLab Global, the social enterprise arm of the Foundation for Young Australians. YLab put young people with relevant lived experience at the centre of designing and developing solutions to complex social challenges. Michael combines co-design, place-based interventions and social procurement to address youth unemployment in Melbourne's west.

Michael is also Non-Executive Director at Future Connect, West Welcome Wagon, and is a committee member on the Western Metropolitan Partnership, Impact Brimbank and Brimbank Community Fund. He is also co-host on The Collective West Podcast.

In this session, Michael will discuss Project BrIMPACT and Western YLab, and how they’re tackling challenges in Melbourne's west.

Maya Marcus is the Head of Product and Learning for Young Change Agents and a Techstars Facilitator and Community Leader. She is also on the Board of Directors for the Foundation of Young Australians. Maya has been working with young people for over five years focused on social impact, entrepreneurship and STEM education, primarily with secondary and tertiary students. She is passionate about empowering young people to reach their full potential and making sure all young people have the opportunity to contribute to solving societal problems and shaping our society.

In this session, Maya will be discussing the Young Change Agents Social Enterprise in a Box initiative. This program builds the entrepreneurial mindset, skillset and toolset for youth by launching social enterprises that are designed and led by students within schools.

Lucy Fraser is a senior social innovator at The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI). She works toward communities and people with lived experience participating in and leading the decision making, design, development and delivery of solutions to complex challenges. Lucy applies her industrial design background to support rigorous design processes and strong collaboration.

Recently she’s been working with young South Sudanese Australians, people living with asthma and people with experience of mental health crisis to improve outcomes. These projects also partner with governments, not-for-profits and philanthropic groups to try new ways of working.

In this session, Lucy and Nanchok will be discussing their project 'Co-designing and delivering responses that support the mental wellbeing of young South Sudanese Australians.'

Nanchock Chol is a South Sudanese women residing in Melbourne. She is currently a delivery lead for the "Conversations between Generations" project, which focuses on mental health conversations within the Sudanese community.

Nanchock recognised mental health as an important issue and subject within her community that needed more awareness and dialogue. This prompted her to take part in a the collaborative project between South Sudanese Australians in Western metropolitan Melbourne, the Department of Health and Human Services, cohealth and TACSI.

Young people have developed ten ideas to support the mental wellbeing of their peers and are now trialling three of them - Conversations between Generations, Culture Party and Mental Health Training.