Today's Pick (03/08/12/140/833) Bigger role for youth

Bigger role for youth

Putrajaya: A MINIMUM of 5,000 youth innovation ambassadors will be created in the next five years to get them to play a more active role in improving the country.

This will take place under a new government initiative called Genovasi, said to be the first of its kind in Asean.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said the initiative would develop youth to become the country’s new generation of innovation ambassadors.

He said Genovasi (a combination of the words generation and innovation) would partner with global innovation leaders to impart innovation, skills, expertise and methodologies to the ambassadors.

These ambassadors, he said, would use their creativity and skills in three areas: community-centric projects to benefit people, economic-focused projects that generate wealth, and government-enhancement projects to improve the delivery service.

Najib said the initiative would provide an avenue for the youth to integrate with the nation and offer their passion and commitment to take Malaysia to greater heights.

“Genovasi will be launched early next year as an innovation organisation, where bright young minds will have opportunities to receive induction into innovation.

“I expect it to be granted university status within five years. A board of visionaries will guide and advise Genovasi,” he said after attending a dialogue session with several leaders in innovation at the Perdana Putra building yesterday.

He said the youth would learn skills and methodologies and how to apply them to real situations to progress, obtain a better quality of life and solutions for the nation.

“We understand and appreciate that youth are no longer content with just being passive spectators.

“They want to engage in improving the country that they are going to inherit. So, the current and future generation of leaders will work hand in hand for the collective good.”

Present were Special Innovation Unit (Unik) chief executive officer Datuk Kamal Jit Singh and Malaysian Innovation Agency  chief executive officer Mark Rozario.  Unik will  spearhead the initiative.

Najib said innovation was an effective and proven strategy in dealing with a volatile, complex, uncertain and ambiguous environment.

"All leading countries have used innovation to achieve a quantum leap in their progress trajectories," he said, adding that  innovation was key to making Vision 2020 a reality.

He said Malaysians needed to change their mindsets that failure meant the end of the road, but in countries like the United States, it was a precursor to success.

Najib said happy citizens were a national aspiration, as much as a healthy gross domestic product.

"We want people to be emotionally happy. Quite often, we forget about the happiness index."

Kamal Jit said Genovasi would be made into an entity next year and youth, especially graduates, would be invited to apply as participants. He said it would  work with universities and  other agencies to rope in participants.

Source  : New Straits Times

Date : 3 August 2012

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