Two youth teams to represent Guyana at global tech Challenge

Four young Guyanese making up two talented tech teams, will represent Guyana at the global platform ‘Generation Unlimited Youth Challenge 2.0’ after emerging as finalists at the country level earlier this month.

In a press release, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said the teams – Youths with Purpose and Team Green Creatives – advanced through the competition from an initial group of 10 to secure their places in the Challenge.

The Challenge is a collaboration between UNICEF and  United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) which was launched  in January “with a call to young Guyanese to develop their own solutions to real-world problems.”

Ms. Delicia Fraser, of Team Youths with Purpose, said it was truly a learning experience going through the various stages of the competition. Her team aims to find workable solutions for youth unemployment, and has created  a web platform called Gambit.

Her teammate, Ms. Jasmine Clement, said youth unemployment could be reduced. “[Youth employment] is attainable if provided with the correct mentorship and networking opportunities, a task that cannot be done by the government alone. The web platform will facilitate this and provide services such as resume building and job and entrepreneurship opportunities,” she explained.

The other team, Green Creatives, has developed an app which  focuses on young Guyanese entrepreneurs who experience a slowdown in growth due to the lack of information and guidance in a centralised location.

“Most of these small businesses are informal, which hamper their ability to access loans or grants through government agencies, developmental partners and other potential stakeholders,” member, Ms. Khadidja Yasmeen Ba said.

She explained that the app aims “to provide a central hub for information and registered users will have access to mentors, sources of funding, necessary paperwork and how to fill them out, and open-source business development guides.”

Both UNICEF Country Representative, Mr. Irfan Akhtar and UNDP Resident Representative, Mr. Jairo Valverde Bermudez complemented the Guyanese youths for their hard work.

The Youth Challenge takes place in over 41 countries and encourages youths between the ages of 14-24 to participate. It forms part of the UN Youth 2030 Strategy which supports adolescents and young people.