INJAZ-Kuwait and HP team up for third-annual Social Innovation Relay

"Today's job market is more competitive than ever, and employers expect high levels of entrepreneurial and information and communication technology skills from the next generation of employees," stated Caroline Jenner, CEO JA-YE Europe.

"Unfortunately, many students do not have the opportunity to learn and develop in these areas, leaving them to struggle in the real world," she added.

The Social Innovation Relay is an innovative programme built on HP and JA-YE's 20-year partnership designed to impart essential skills for the workforce to secondary school students in an interactive and meaningful way.

Connected by HP's cutting-edge technologies, students around the world can collaborate with HP mentors to develop business concepts that address a social challenge.

During its first two years, the Social Innovation Relay reached more than 30,000 students at 1,000 schools in 13 countries across the world and engaged more than 200 HP employees.

Last year's winning team from South Africa, the Emulsified Environmentalists, developed a solar-powered lamp concept from recycled materials that brings light to disadvantaged communities, while also eliminating the environmental and health damage caused by traditional kerosene lamps. This winning idea responded to both electricity shortages and growing respiratory problems in South Africa.

Students, mentored by HP volunteers, either face-to-face or virtually, may enter in teams of three to five participants to develop solutions related to education, health, environment, technology, poverty, economic development, human rights and energy. The best 20 solutions will be shortlisted.

HP will then assess the projects and choose the top 10 teams in April. Teams will continue to develop their ideas, and the winning team from Kuwait will compete globally in an online final against the other national winning teams worldwide in July.

INJAZ-Kuwait's CEO, Mrs. Rana Al-Nibari, said, "Finding solutions to social challenges is critical to the advancement of societies, whether these challenges impact us directly or indirectly at an individual level. Guiding young and fresh minds to finding solutions to these challenges does not only help them develop entrepreneurial skills, but also builds a larger vision of the correlation between the challenges and the various life aspects they impact. Searching for solutions in a global competition is the ideal setting to stimulate students in pushing themselves."

"We are honored to be part of such initiatives and to be the only INJAZ Arab member nation to partner with HP's global innovation initiative. We are confident that we will be seeing great innovations coming out of Kuwait in the next five months," she added.