Promoting Economic Pluralism (PEP), together with some amazing partners, is hosting this series of pioneering online events. The charity is known for innovation – opening space for discussion of different approaches to organise economies to address the current issues we face. For example, last year the popular ‘Not the Nobel Prize’ competition was a key focus. Festival for Change promises to be just as energising and enduring.
Attendees enjoyed a full programme of events throughout the festival. From our launch on 27 June to 19 October when we announced the ‘People’s Choice’ winner from the four finalists , there was something for everyone.
PHASE 1: The Challenge
The first phase was to enable budding 18-25 year old global changemakers to respond to our challenge to #buildbackbetter with new ideas to shape the future.
Mentors supported the young participants on their festival journey, and there was a series of brilliant briefings and resources to help develop and present ideas. As well as these, great thinkers and doers from across the world shared diverse views in provocation speaker sessions.
53 ideas were submitted by the end August deadline. Divided into four categories, 12 proposals were picked for presentation to expert panels and from these four finalists were chosen. It was then over to the public to vote for the ‘People’s Choice’.
This was won by Mohammad Rayad and Asma Arisha and their ‘Bottle Economy’ project.
The proposal, to reduce plastic waste and beat poverty in Bangladesh, was a great example of how young innovators want to change the world.
PHASE 2: Career focus
In the festival’s second phase, we extended our focus with a look at what careers looked like in the new future with briefings from a global HR expert.
This was strengthened by opportunities to meet some of our great partners to learn about their organisations and how they developed them. We also continued to have a lineup of great new speakers to feed fresh thinking and promote economic pluralism.