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About YSN
YSN’s mission is to bring to life the new world of global opportunity for the next generation. Our goal is to support ambitious young people as they strive to reach their full potential. Access to the right tools, advice, best practices, and resources can be game changing. We have created a collective of the leading minds on global youth empowerment, employment and entrepreneurship — who’s goal is to inspire, motivate, and guide emerging leaders as they explore their options, sculpt their careers and pursue lives of substance.
Opportunity is everywhere, but sometimes hard to see. Once this is realized, the world becomes a proverbial candy store accessible to the billion young people entering the global workforce today. YSN brings to light a new perspective on the world, its possibilities, and opportunities, and guides readers through the process of making these opportunities a reality with practical advice and best practices.
YSN's Audience
Readers of YSN are ambitious young people from around the world who range from students to young leaders and activists, corporate employees to entrepreneurs. Most are in a state of transition, either launching their careers or trying to get to the next level. They are excited about the new world of opportunity, but want to know more about it, see it from different perspectives, and participate however they can. They are curious, passionate and inspired — our job is to fuel that energy while adding the connective tissue to help them fill in gaps of what they need to know, should know, or would love to know. These ambitious young people seek inspiration, yet more importantly, practical “how-to” guidance on how to succeed both in their personal and professional lives. Most exciting of all, our readers are global citizens dedicated to making the world a better place through their life’s work.
Featured Sections
With the help of prominent contributors from around the world, YSN will cover global trends impacting youth employment, entrepreneurship, leadership and engagement. The platform will highlight opportunities, share experiences, lessons learned, best practices, practical tips, and more through the following categories:
Impact
This section demonstrates the impact that young people are creating around the world by featuring actions and activities that do good, make a difference, and positively affect lives. This is a section all about inspiration and what is possible. It will bring activism, social entrepreneurship and innovation to life through stories and breakthroughs being lead or largely run by young people. From working in a lab to inventing new forms of steel, to water filtration social franchises in Africa, to UN Sustainable Developments Goals being addressed, to a former hacker or terrorist turning good and doing well. This section will come to life through story telling, profiles and rich photography and video.
Movers & Shakers
This section features human-interest stories, spotlighting a specific individual or a group. Different from the “Impact” section which focuses on the mission/vision/impact/outcome of the work itself, these articles focus on telling a person’s life experience, their path, and their critical decisions so others can relate, see what’s possible and get ideas. Illustrated with rich photography and video, “Movers & Shakers” highlights profiles of the young leaders of today who are entrepreneurs, leaders, teachers, politicians, inventors, innovators and so much more.
Events
This section features opportunities for readers to participate in cool, life-changing events — Hackathons, Conferences, Seminars, Webinars, Tours, etc. For example, Unreasonable at Sea, Global Entrepreneurship Summit, The Collision Conference, SXSW, etc. It is our hope that in the future, this section will become searchable and viewable on a global map.
Opportunities
This section is rich with a multitude of opportunities that young people can take advantage of. It is broken down by Industry, Skills, Hotspots, Who’s Hiring? And Other (Scholarships, Incubators, Accelerators, Exchanges, etc). It brings to life a range of great opportunities for young people – all shared through storytelling. An important requirement for this section is that it is not a job board. Rather, it focuses on resources, trends, open calls, and adds context for why they’re worth paying attention to, who they’re most relevant for and how readers can get involved. These articles may cover big trends like the fact that the energy industry needs to fill 1 million jobs today; there’s a shortage of teachers in a particular part of the world; how to learn to code and why; where to tap into robust communities, and how to get involved in contests, exchanges, accelerators, apprenticeships, etc.
HOTSPOTS: Young people, especially as they’re coming out of school and figuring out what to do next are making big decisions about their lives, while also wanting to explore the world, other cultures, communities, ways of living, etc. Articles in this section feature opportunities related to the coolest places to live, work, find yourself, test out a new business, volunteer, etc.
INDUSTRIES: Here we put a spotlight on booming industries and how they may offer strategic opportunities for young people who are exploring their career options. Resources in this section offer immediate access to all the resources one needs to find opportunities within a given sector.
SKILLS: Technology, STEM, soft skills, languages, management, communications, leadership, entrepreneurship, etc. This section explores the critical skill sets that unlock a young person’s ability to take advantage of a specific opportunity. The goal is to provide the evidence pointing to why specific skills need to be developed, and resources for how to build them, both in person and online.
Globetrotter
Young ambitious people tend to travel, or, if not, dream of exploring the world. Here we bring those adventures, excursions, and experiences to life through the eyes of globetrotters and travelers telling their tales. Globetrotter articles bring to life how venturing out of your comfort zone can be transformative in learning about yourself, different cultures, different environments, industries, opportunities, etc. This section also features “how to” such as: “how to couch surf your way around the world” or “what are the best hotels for meetings?”. Articles cover a range of possibilities for global exploration from “Simple and Cheap” to “Living Large and Lux”…and everything in between.
The YSN platform will demonstrate, in real time, the impact ambitious millennials and Gen x’ers are making with the goal of inspiring others to see what’s possible. Articles will address key questions like who are the most notable influential people and role models? Who is gathering where and why? What’s being said, discussed, and challenged? Where is all the opportunity? How can it be tapped into? How do you become, accomplish, do ____? Further, it will share stories from global explorers experiencing new cultures, environments, countries and regions. Most importantly, YSN will provide strategic, tactical advice that has been tested around the world from ivy league classes to developing communities – specific steps that young people can take to reach the next level.
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“Writing is the painting of the voice” — Voltaire
