GYIN briefs media on forthcoming YALESI Summit

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By Rohey Jadama
Global Youth Innovation Network (GYIN) Gambia Chapter on Wednesday,
27th January, 2016 convened a press briefing on the forthcoming
international forum dubbed “Youth Agribusiness, Leadership, andEntrepreneurship Summit on Innovation (YALESI)”.
The goal of the summit, according to the organisers, is to build the
capacity of youth to fight hunger, create jobs and develop sustainable
communities in the 100 countries where GYIN operates. The forum is
slated to take place on 29 through 31 March 2016, in Dakar, Senegal.
Mamadou Edrissa Njie, national coordinator of GYIN Gambia, also a
member of the organising committee, said GYIN, International Fund for
Agricultural Development (IFAD), and Arizona State University’s
EmPeace LABS project are the ones behind the summit.
Each day of the summit will focus on a specific sub-theme.  The
sub-theme for day one is ‘Youth innovations: reducing hunger’. On the
second day, the sub-theme will be ‘Youth innovations: generating
employment’ while the third and final day discussion will focus on
‘Youth innovations: building local communities’.
The GYIN national coordinator said people will be admitted for the
summit in different categories. The categories are hunger fighters,
entrepreneurs, community leaders, innovators, and volunteers; and that
50 people will be selected for each category.
Mr Njie said the summit will be highly interactive as the youth will
receive training from experts and will also have the opportunity to
exchange ideas and best practices with their peers, adding that it
targets 250 participants between the ages of 18 and 35. The
Participants, he said, will be selected from among those who applied
and meet
the YALESI criteria and that the deadline for submission of
application is 7 February 2016.
In addition to the youth participants, he said, 100 organisations will
be invited as summit partners. He explained that partners will include
20 government organisations, 20 corporations, 20 international
institutions, 20 universities, and 20 media organisations.

Aside from the many workshops and panel discussions as part of the
summit, participants will benefit from the experience and expertise of
40 globally recognised experts as keynote speakers; 20 youth and 20
adults.
As for the media coverage of the summit, he said100 youth journalists,
100 youth bloggers, and 100 youth twitter experts will join the event
from all over the world.
Mr. Njie said GYIN seeks to develop evidence-based, sustainable,
scalable, and cost-effective agribusiness entrepreneurship, and
leadership programmes and policies that address the root causes of
youth unemployment. It also seeks to increase opportunities for young
people to have work or start a successful business.