Five people, two Saturdays, one pitch = a lot of hard work and lessons learned. Here's our experience.Defining Success: How Not Winning Does Not Equate to LosingIf you'd like to learn more about the annual Social xChange hosted by Ryerson University's SVZ, go to their website here. A lot has occurred in the past few days. Marches recognizing women’s rights worldwide, our neighbour to the south placing controversial bans on immigrants from certain Muslim-majority countries, the Ringling Bros. shutdown, to name a few. Oh, and Social xChange, a two-day long event (Jan. 28-29) best described as a hybrid between a pitch competition and a hackathon for aspiring social innovators. Long story short, I — and Global Figure, by extension — didn’t walk away with a monetary prize or a winning title. Tragic.
Part 2 of 2: Now, Not Later, and Why It Matters.This is the second post in a two-part series. If you missed the first post, you can find it here. Enter climate change. Since I was young, I have always loved being outdoors, surrounded by nature - after all, it was the perfect way for an apathetic child to distance herself from the hustle and bustle of the big metropolises where I was raised. All throughout elementary school, systematic thinking seemed like the way to go; it was straightforward, effortless, and simply the more logical approach to take. Questioning the "status quo" or the popular "social norms" at the time was a one-way ticket to being outcast and ridiculed by my peers, nevermind taking an outright stance! In fact, I guarantee I would have balked completely if you had suggested I “stood up for what was right”. To my then 12 year-old self, everything perpetrated by the media, world leaders, and everything “mainstream society”, had to be correct. What was there to question?
Part 1 of 2: Tomorrow, Not Today.Wake up. Eat. Go to School. Eat. Study. Eat. TV. Sleep. Rinse and Repeat. For a number of years, this was the epitome of my daily routine. Occasionally, on those rarest of rare days where I felt especially optimistic, a few minutes’ worth of ambitious ideas for DIY projects would flood my mind - but nothing more. In most cases, though, changes to my typically benign schedule mainly involved the addition of a little physical activity here and there, or another form of entertainment in lieu of the television. “Tomorrow,” I often told myself, convinced that putting off seemingly challenging tasks for the time being would result in a fierce desire to tackle them the following day. Eventually, this word became all-encompassing, seeping into every aspect of my life - socially, academically, you name it - until it turned into a mantra of mine.
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- A L I C E C H E N G -I'm a 15 year old Osaka-born Chinese IB student who calls Toronto home. Native to Shenyang, an old industrial city in Northeastern China, I didn't grow up with the most eco-friendly household/circle of friends. ArchivesCategories |