m:lab By John Kieti / June 1, 2012
Yes Youth Can Initiative Sponsors Pivot East
The Yes Youth Can initiative has partnered with m:lab East Africa to sponsor the Pivot East Pitching Competition and Conference. Yes Youth Can is a Mercy Corps’ program in Kenya, which was created with funding from USAID. Mercy Corps is a global aid agency that focuses on disaster response, sustainable economic development, health services, and emergency and natural disaster relief. Yes Youth Can (YYC) is a USAID – funded initiative for youth empowerment in Kenya. “But it’s not your typical program” says Elliott Wilkes, Technology Advisor for YYC. “We’re putting youth in the driver’s seat to take charge of their future for a change. We don’t have beneficiaries; we have youth partners at the grassroots. We’re not a project; we’ve helped the youth of Kenya start a movement.”
One of the unique components of Yes Youth Can is the Digital Innovation Team, led by Mr. Wilkes, which is responsible for working with youth to put together digital solutions at the grassroots. One of these solutions, a large scale SMS platform for subsidized communications, expected to launch in mid-July, came about after months of synthesizing the needs of Kenyan youth in the program.
In addition to co-sponsoring the competition, Yes Youth Can will provide key support to a number of co-selected Pivot East youth applicants whom focus on services and solutions geared towards the grassroots, in the form of direct investment, market research, and linkages to the hundreds of thousands of Kenyan youth involved in the project. Yes Youth Can is pleased to have the President of the grassroots organization, Mwanasha Gaserego, involved in this selection process.
Alongside a growing number of technology partners, including Microsoft, Thought Works, Nokia, and now m:lab/ihub, YYC’s Digital Innovation Team, hosted by Mercy Corps, is working to lower the barrier for entry into the digital society and the information age for the youth of Kenya.
Pivot East Pitching Competition and Conference. Yes Youth Can is a Mercy Corps’ program in Kenya, which was created with funding from USAID. Mercy Corps is a global aid agency that focuses on disaster response, sustainable economic development, health services, and emergency and natural disaster relief.
Author : John Kieti
John Kieti is the Lead at m:lab East Africa. He is an exponent for mobile entrepreneurship and an experienced m4d professional. John is passionate about the growth of East Africa's knowledge economy. He holds an MBA and BSc in Computer Science. He also occasionally shares his thoughts about East Africa's knowledge economy on his blog - gmeltdown.com
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7 Comments
Yes Youth Can Initiative Sponsors Pivot East | InnovationAfrica at 16:47:17PM Thursday, June 7, 2012
[...] Go to Source [...]
ReplyEUNICE M.KIMANI at 07:52:56AM Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Strathmore University Enterprise Centre would like to offer training in Enterprise Development to the youth entrepreneurs under your sponsorship.Kindly allow us to send a proposal with details of what we offer and our profile showing what we have achieved so far.
ReplyGEORGE HENRY OBUYA at 13:02:35PM Friday, August 24, 2012
We are a group youth both men,women and school going tins who have formed a self help group called Buoye Digital Village,whose main objective is to eradicate computer illiteracy amongst the rural folk and to open up our communities to the world. So far we’ve acquired a few computers and looking for funds to enable us achieve our goal. Kindly assist us by any means to enable us reach all the villages.
ReplyDuncan Ochieng at 22:25:48PM Friday, October 5, 2012
We are an NGO in Kenya dealing in Disaster Risk Reduction awareness especially among the youths and we would like to request if you can fund some of our projects to enable us achieve some of our objectives.
Replyodero collins at 15:56:25PM Friday, November 2, 2012
i am in a youth group and we cannot go on because of the little that we invest monthly we have tried to follow up the money given out by the government but we never succeeded in any so would help us change the lives of the youths in the society
ReplyArnold Rukanga at 12:41:52PM Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Thanks so much for the work being done.
ReplyMy group usually deals in movie making and film and we usually deal with problems majorly affecting the societies at stake.
Currently we are now planning for another film about human trafficking and sex slavery from Uganda to Malaysia but we have this problem of funds and no one comes to our rescue and its now four years in the industry.
Otherwise the youth can. Arnold.
Timothy Muriithi at 08:38:17AM Thursday, May 2, 2013
Thank you for the good work that you are doing. I started a recording studio in 2011 for music recording. For now I have a network of more than 50 youths with music and art talent but none of us has grown much because of lack of funds. Kindly help us to make our talents grow
Reply