About two months ago, I got the opportunity to participate in a conference organized by the Youth to Youth organization of the World Bank. The conference emphasized the urgency to focus on and invest in the needs of young people all over the world. It was a holistic approach to youth development necessary to address the growing educational and employment needs of youth.
Young people are tomorrow’s workers, leaders and entrepreneurs. Yet, all over the world, we are struggling with a multitude of problems – drugs, crime, violence, unemployment, abuse, illiteracy and natural disasters to name a few.
 As part of the conference,  during the final brainstorming session a case study competition was open to provided participants the opportunity to solve a realistic youth development case study. The session was facilitated by Charles Abelmann, Lead Program Coordinator, Human Resources and Organization Effectiveness, World Bank.

The case study was very well received by participants and to facilitate a more in-depth analysis of the case study, Y2Y decided to launch the “Case Study Competition”, open to all attendees of the Global Youth Conference.

I was so impressed by this, that I decided to apply to the competition. Three weeks after they launch the event, me and Carolina Corcione, a lawyer friend from Colombia, submitted our proposal and actually won third place among all the others who submitted.

The organizers of the event will soon upload our case study to the World banks website, and I received an award certificate and the satisfaction of understanding how to develop a economic development project such as that one.