In July 2020, MUN Impact made history through its Global Summit, uniting students from over 100 countries in discussing the UN Sustainable Development Goals framework. Now, a remarkable precedent is being set again by the 4 intrepid leaders of the Global Summit 2.0. These are the 2 co-secretaries-general (Hugh McDowell (a 17-year old from Belfast, UK) and Aanya Srivastava (a 15-year old living in Doha, Qatar), head of secretariat (Farihah Ahmed (a 16-year old from Dhaka, Bangladesh) and deputy head of secretariat (Ilyes Zeraiki (a 15-year old living in the United Arab Emirates). Focusing on applying the SDGs, and not just learning about them, this second edition of the summit will feature social entrepreneurship incubators, investment pitches, and other unique activities to evolve the Global Summit brand beyond theory and discussion and into tangible effects in the wider world. It will be truly historic, and in this episode, our host, Erik Novak, engages with these 4 leaders to learn more about what is ahead.
In July 2020, MUN Impact made history through its Global Summit, uniting students from over 100 countries in discussing the UN Sustainable Development Goals framework. Now, a remarkable precedent is being set again by the 4 intrepid leaders of the Global Summit 2.0. These are the 2 co-secretaries-general (Hugh McDowell (a 17-year old from Belfast, UK) and Aanya Srivastava (a 15-year old living in Doha, Qatar), head of secretariat (Farihah Ahmed (a 16-year old from Dhaka, Bangladesh) and deputy head of secretariat (Ilyes Zeraiki (a 15-year old living in the United Arab Emirates). Focusing on applying the SDGs, and not just learning about them, this second edition of the summit will feature social entrepreneurship incubators, investment pitches, and other unique activities to evolve the Global Summit brand beyond theory and discussion and into tangible effects in the wider world. It will be truly historic, and in this episode, our host, Erik Novak, engages with these 4 leaders to learn more about what is ahead.
Podcast Name: ComMUNiqué
Podcast Producer: MUN Impact
Episode Title: Youth Leadership Turbocharges Global Summit 2.0
Episode Number: 5
Host: Erik Novak
Guest: Hugh McDowell, Aanya Srivastava, Farihah Ahmed, and Ilyes Zeraiki
Date Published: September 24, 2020
Episode Description: In July 2020, MUN Impact made history through its Global Summit, uniting students from over 100 countries in discussing the UN Sustainable Development Goals framework. Now, a remarkable precedent is being set again by the 4 intrepid leaders of the Global Summit 2.0. These are the 2 co-secretaries-general (Hugh McDowell (a 17-year old from Belfast, UK) and Aanya Srivastava (a 15-year old living in Doha, Qatar)), head of secretariat (Farihah Ahmed (a 16-year old from Dhaka, Bangladesh)) and deputy head of secretariat (Ilyes Zeraiki (a 15-year old living in the United Arab Emirates)). Focusing on applying the SDGs, and not just learning about them, this second edition of the summit will feature social entrepreneurship incubators, investment pitches, and other unique activities to evolve the Global Summit brand beyond theory and discussion and into tangible effects in the wider world. It will be truly historic, and in this episode, our host, Erik Novak, engages with these 4 leaders to learn more about what is ahead.
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Erik [00:00:12] Hello and welcome, to the world’s premiere podcast at the intersection of global education, youth engagement, and the work of the UN proper. My name is Erik Novak, and this is ComMUNiqué. Today, I am excited to host the macroscopic overview of MUN Impact’s upcoming Global Summit 2.0, an event set to happen very soon in October, that will unite youth from around the world around understanding and - perhaps most importantly - implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals framework. I have with me today the four leaders of this upcoming event: Hugh, Ilyes, Aanya, and Farihah. Now, let’s get right to it: if I were to ask you guys to give me the elevator sales pitch of this event, what would you say? What would you say is its main differential and what it most hopes to accomplish?
Ilyes: [00:01:15] Yeah so I think basically the main focus of the Summit will be to inspire participants to actively engage in their communities and give back to their environment, do some good, help solve the SDGs.
Farihah [00:01:38] Yeah, I agree with what Ilyes said. I think while the last summit was about , you know, building awareness about the SDGs, sustainability, and how to reach it, this Summit we’re focusing on how we can actually turn all those amazing ideas that were shared in the last one into a reality. So, it’s all about action, all about policy-making, diving into it really deeper than we did last time, not just looking at the ideas but specifically how we can actually make them come true - that’s all what this Summit is about, and I think that’s what truly makes it more unique than any other event, because of just how solely action-based it is.
Hugh McDowell [00:02:15] Yes, and just continuing on that thread: with the upcoming Global Summit 2.0, we are introducing our SDG strands, which is a way of incorporating the Sustainable Development Goals in a very action-oriented way, and with this, young people are able to discuss and promote ideas that they can implement in their own local communities, which incrementally has a huge effect on our progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. Of course, that is what we champion here at MUN Impact, and we are hoping to bring to a global stage in the Global Summit 2.0.
Aanya [00:03:01] And, not only do we have, again, just building on as Hugh said, not only do we have the SDG sandbox, we also have the dolphin pool. Where planning for an SDG campaign or goal is one thing, the way you pitch it for others to collaborate and further develop this project is a different thing which we are also incorporating in this Summit. And how this is such a deep dive in from what we had in our previous summit, and I definitely think that - I hope - that students from all around the world will come and really take the ideas that they work on here and really build them up in their own time.
Erik [00:03:38] Alright, fantastic, guys! I see that there is a lot of passion between the four of you on how to organize the summit, and what the opportunity and experiences will entail, and it also seems that it is a much more hands-on experience, as compared to the first summit, so to the extent that it is a 2.0 as a next edition of the first summit, it is also a 2.0 as a continuation and evolution of the first summit. If you could elaborate on that, I think our listeners would be very well served.
Farihah [00:04:20] So, our Global Summit takes place on the Friday October 23rd to the Sunday October 25th, and to register you just go to the munimpact.org website, and you can pre-register for MUN Impact as like a participant or you could also register as a presenter, student presenter or other presenter, and we also have the Spanish version of the MUN Impact Global Summit 2.0, which is again it just attracts another whole demographic of audience from Europe, from Spain.
Ilyes [00:04:57] To expand on the point about the hands-on experience of the Summit 2.0, I think last summit was more about being inspired, learning all about the ways that you can solve the SDGs, while tihs Summit will be more about finding out what you can do specificall and your environment to solve the SDGs, to impact your community, and especially the SDG sandbox and Dolphin Pool will allow participants to really find excellent solutions to solve issues that are currently going on in their environment.
Aanya [00:05:42] Yeah, completely. Adding on to what you guys said, I think another thing that makes the Summit so awesome is, well, take a look at the ideas Shark Tank, for example: you literally pitch a business idea that is supposed to be revolutionizing to a bunch of sharks. Well, that’s what we’re doing, but on a different scale, I guess. We’re trying to come up with really awesome frameworks for action and sustainable development that we can actually implement as youth; we don’t have to wait for other people such as governments or other world leaders to take action for us: we’re doing that right now. And what we’re doing is - and I think that’s part of why this Summit is honestly going to be innovational - is with this Dolphin Pool we’re all coming together, people from all around the world, who’ve never met each other, and we’re trying to sort of build this framework through the Dolphin Pool and these pitches on how we can actually make an amazing plan to solve some of these problems. So, I think, just adding on, that’s sort of one of the coolest things, I think, about this Summit, and what makes it unique to other SDG-based events.
Erik [00:06:44] Very interesting. So, it seems to me that you have a Dolphin Pool, which is similar to the Shark Tank, notorious program where different entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a team of judges who decide whether they want to invest in that or not, and you also have an SDG incubator and accelerator program, it seems. And, besides those two ventures, I assume that there are also a variety of different ways in which a participant can engage, learn, and cultivate their own skills and improvements as individuals, and I’m curious to learn a little bit more about the different branches of the Summit by maybe asking each of you to develop on your particular work with the Summit 2.0, what you’re most engaged with, and therefore to give details and nuance on that particular area. Now, I know that you, Hugh, are Secretary General, so maybe you can start us off by giving us an overview of everything, and how the different roles operate, and then we can trickle down from there.
Hugh [00:07:59] Yes, that’s correct. Along with Aanya I am the co-Secretary-General of the Global Summit. So, throughout the three days that is the 23rd, 24th and 25th of October, next month, we will be having a series of workshops and presentations. Now, that also includes our SDG strands, which we have previously mentioned, but also a wide variety of workshops and presentations on the key themes within the Summit, many of which do relate to the SDGs, of course, but all focus on action and inspiration and leadership. We are looking at branching out this Summit as well: we’re looking to make these presentations and workshops more interactive with the students as we want to get them really interested in their future and how they can implement positive change within this world. So, within the Summit, the structure is we have several teams all working on different aspects of the Summit, headed by our Deputy Secretary Generals. Our Deputy Secretary Generals are all very dedicated to their positions. We have seen some great work so far on our press team and, you know, everything from vetting workshops, and, you know, corporate outreach, and our social hours, our admins, our SDG strands. There is a lot of good work going on here, and I’m sure that my colleagues can go into more depth on all of that. So, we have seen a very promising start to planning this upcoming Global Summit, and we are hoping to see a very good result.
Erik [00:09:46] Alright, thanks Hugh! Now, yes, you and Aanya are co-Secretaries-General, and, in my experience, sometimes it is a little hard to do task separation effectively because you essentially intersect your tasks quite a bit. So, how are you guys separating both of your tasks? Maybe you can explain what you’re specifying on, Aanya, versus what Hugh is specifying on.
Aanya [00:10:13] So, me and Hugh work together, so our jobs, again, with Ilyes and Farihah, is that we have so many teams working for the Global Summit 2.0, as Hugh said; we have plenaries, admin, press, so we basically, kind of, even out the workload. For example, two of us will be in charge of a specific team - we will be overlooking how they’re doing, conference-wise, how much they’ve done, how much they have to do. We also hold weekly meetings now, because by the day the Global Summit is coming closer and closer, so we need to make sure that everyone is on top of their things, and again we’re always there to, like, answer any questions, and Ms. Lisa is always there, so we let her know whatever we need or whatever they need. So, it’s just evening out the workload and communication. Communication is a huge aspect and we always communicate everything we need to talk about, and I’m sure Ilyes and Farihah can say the same about how we work as teams.
Erik [00:11:13] Alright, great! And, my understanding is that Ilyes and Farihah are heads of the Secretariat, so you coordinate with the student leaders. So, to the extent that Hugh and Aanya are also perhaps more engaged with certain other logistics and outreach areas, Farihah and Ilyes are very much specifically focused on interacting with the other student leaders. So that’s an interesting leadership structure - do correct me if I’m wrong. But I’m curious to know more about how that looks.
Farihah [00:11:58] Yeah, sure. I think it’s actually, like, the way that we’ve sort of, like, sort of like Aanya and Hugh were saying, we split up the work of the Global Summit in a really great way, where it’s not too much on anyone. Everyone’s doing sort of an equal-ish amount, and, by that, we’re also just everybody involved in the planning process and brainstorming and giving out ideas, which is very cool. So, Ilyes and myself, as the people who are the heads of the secretariat, we are, yeah, sort of the main sources of communication between all the teams, so we interact directly with all the DSGs and the officers in each of those teams and sort of coordinate all of the communication and see, ok is this team on track? What needs to be done? And we sort of communicate that between the SGs and the teams. Of course, all of us end up being the lines of communication in some way, but that is sort of the specialty between Ilyes and myself. And, we really hope that this sort of really efficient and awesome communication that the team has been doing so far can go on till the day of the Summit, because it’s honestly mesmerizing how amazingly all the teams have been coordinating despite being in all of these different timezones and the communication and all the Slack things and messages have been really great so far.
Erik [00:13:09] So, I’m curious, if you were to pick out one or two moments that you were particularly impressed by in terms of team communication, team engagement, and everything just working out, what would you say - and I know that the Summit is still very much under intense preparation, so there’s quite a bit of road ahead - but what are the successes thus far?
Ilyes [00:13:38] Yeah, so I think that every single DSG is doing an incredible job to coordinate the teams, very clearly outlining the next steps that need to be taken, the responsibilities, what meetings are coming up, and just doing an incredible job of communicating what needs to be communicated with the team. As of now, I think I can’t really pinpoint a specific team that is doing better than the other. Right now, they’re all putting an amazing amount of effort, and a lot of work is currently being done to ensure that everything is organized, that we’re going in the right track, and that everything is… that the Summit is going to be as amazing as possible.
Erik [00:14:26] And, speaking of going in the right track, and the Summit being as amazing as possible, what is the vision here? How would you define a Summit that worked 100% say… actually, no - 110% as well as you had expected it would?
Hugh [00:14:50] Well, I’ll jump in here and just say when we’re running a Summit like this not only do we want the participant to come away having learned a great deal about their world, about the action that needs taking in order to improve it, but they also come away with a motivation, a will to make change. They come away with the sense of wanting to get involved in that action. They want to be the next ones speaking at that Summit, showing off their project, which has improved the lives of those around them. We really want to inspire a sense of global community among participants; but, crucially, it is that idea that we can inspire the will to make change and that is what I would consider to be a very successful Summit, so hopefully we will see that.
Aanya [00:15:46] Most definitely it’s what Hugh said. And also, we are the young generation, we have all the technology, the tools. We have the education to bring meaningful change in the world today, with everything that’s going on, and we just hope the Global Summit is that extra push or that, again, as Hugh said, that motivation for young students, young scientists or innovators, just to have that motivation to do more for this world. Again, that would be considered, as like, that’s the main goal for the Global Summit.
Farihah [00:16:24] Yeah, I think you guys hit it right on the head, exactly what you said. Just inspire people to go away having a sense of action that they need to take right now. I think, like, one of the coolest things about this Summit is the fact that we’re encouraging people to sort of not take boundaries for what they are. I mean, we’re encouraging young people everywhere to break all of these boundaries. When we set boundaries, we’re sort of encouraging them to wait around for governments, for other politicians or leaders, to take action. Rather, we’re telling them “hey, this is how YOU can take action on your own, just as an individual or as a collective group or community of just the youth, you can make a tangible difference on the world, probably faster than any politician or other world leaders can, and you don’t have to wait around for the adults to listen to us”. I think that is one of the coolest things about the Summit, and what sort of sets our event apart from other SDG-based events: we’re encouraging people to not really take the seeming boundaries in front of us as they are; instead, we’re encouraging people everywhere to break through it by teaching them “ok, like, these are the frameworks you can take to actually make tangible action”. And I think this is sort of what sets the Summit apart.
Ilyes [00:17:39] Yeah, I completely agree with what Farihah just said. Especially, this Summit is open to middle school, high school, and even adults, but we are trying to encourage this generation to do as much as they can to benefit their world, to look around themselves, look around and just say “this needs to be fixed and this needs to be fixed now. This is what we can do to solve it. And I am going to actually do something about it.” And I really think that the SDG strands is what’s going to definitely make participants realize that they can actually do something about it, they can find solutions, they can implement it, and it doesn’t have to be adults, it doesn’t have to be leaders of the world that have to take this action, but actually we can take this leap, we can change the world, and we can make it a better place by providing our solutions.
Erik [00:18:51] Now, thank you guys for your very candid and motivational answers, and I really do think the Summit is in the best hands possible for it to achieve all that it wishes and hopes to achieve and aspires to become, and I’m really excited to see what future editions also look like as a result of all this. Because, of course, even though the Summit 2.0 is the second iteration of the Summit idea, it’s only really just beginning. And, to the extent that the first Summit had almost 2,000 initial registrations from over 100 countries, I’m really excited to see where this next Summit goes, especially because it has a slightly different approach and appeal and really differentiates itself from all the other options on the market that currently exist. That said, I think it would be remiss of me not to mention that these four leaders that are here with us today are also incredibly young. It would be perfectly understandable of the listener to assume that these leaders were starting or finishing their university careers, and were just doing this as a side project during that time period. However, these leaders are all between 15 and 17 years old, smack dab in high school. And this is what I find particularly impressive here, because we have events of a global magnitude, and with extremely high-quality professionalism and engagement, being spearheaded by high school students. And, I think this particular facet of the event should be emphasized and really demonstrated as much as possible, because it goes to show that, when passion is the object of choice, age really isn’t a document. And, I think it breaks a lot of barriers, especially that older people have, regarding what’s possible, and what sorts of responsibilities should be given to the younger generation. After all, we are tomorrow’s generation, but we have today’s resources. So, how do we transcend from who we are today to who we need to become tomorrow so that the world has the best leadership it can have? Now, this philosophical rant aside, because of the young age and very high set of responsibilities that you guys have accrued as a result of this task - and I know that most of you were engaged with the first Global Summit as well, and are also engaged with MUN Impact’s other branches in some way shape or form, so you’re certainly well involved with the organization as a whole - but besides all that, I think it’s very interesting for the listener if we got some backstory on how you originally learned of MUN Impact, how you got to participate in whichever branch that you did, what you thought of it all, and what led you to apply to the position that you currently have in the Global Summit 2.0.
Hugh [00:21:56] Ok, well, I guess I will go ahead and start on that topic. Within MUN Impact, I actually discovered MUN Impact earlier this year, I would say around the time that students all around the globe were being told that school was therefore closed until perhaps September time due to coronavirus and the restrictions that we had to enforce. I had actually taken part in Model United Nations in some form for the past four years in middle and high school, but this was a truly unique opportunity. Not only as a young generation, we are also the first major tech generation, I suppose, or internet generation: we grew up using smartphones and computers to access the internet and social media. And, this is actually how I discovered MUN Impact, as we have a great Instagram page that is always posting very exciting content, and I discovered our MUN@Home program, which teaches students all around the world how to take part in MUN, and all the basics of MUN, for free, of course, online. We have some great mentors in that program. And then, from there, you know, we built up this idea of the first Global Summit. I’m sure that a lot of us who are working on the second Global Summit were involved in the first Global Summit. It was a great project, it brought together people from all across the world to work together, especially on technical... technological issues, you know, the press, promotion, and marketing. It’s incredible what, you know, a high school teenager can do with just a computer and a smartphone these days. It’s very inspiring and hopeful to see that. So, I’m sure, you know, my colleagues, the heads of secretariat, and co-secretary-general, have similar stories to share as well.
Aanya [00:23:55] Yeah, exactly similar to Hugh. I saw it on Instagram - again, MUN Impact has an amazing Instagram page - and the second I saw it I was completely drawn into it. Again, school was closed because of the coronavirus, and I was so drawn into it, I was like “this is such an amazing organization, and the work they’re doing is just indescribable”, and I was just… immediately filled the form to get in. Originally, I was a diplomat for the MENA region, and then now I’ve got promoted to the co-assistant Deputy Secretary General of the MENA region, and it’s just… slowly I started becoming more involved with other aspects. So, for example, in the first Global Summit I was part of the plenary team, and I’m also part of the MUN@Home team. So, I’m a mentor. And, it’s just, slowly and gradually it just became such a huge part of my life, and I’m just so happy and thankful that I got… am part of MUN Impact. The opportunities they have given me is just, it’s amazing. And I just want everyone in the world to just be a part of this organization that does such good work.
Ilyes [00:25:09] So, I first participated, got involved, with MUN Impact, participating as a delegate in MUN@Home, because I was interested in the concept, and since school was no longer… was being held online, MUN opportunities were very limited, so I really wanted to find a way where I can continue developing my… continue doing MUN. And then I found out about this program, and I first participated as a delegate, just to find out how it works, and what its values were. And, after the first round, I was just dumbfounded by how amazing the program was. I mean, there was so much dedication and hard work that was put into every single aspect of MUN Impact. And, I just decided right away that I wanted to be part of the team, so I applied to be a mentor for the next round, and then I never looked back since. I tried being involved in as many parts and strands of MUN as possible, of MUN Impact as possible, just to try to make as big of an impact and to try to grow MUN Impact into what it’s potential could be. And, I just think that this program is so unique and special and that, yeah, like Aanya said, every single person that is interested in MUN or international relations or literally anything that is related to diplomacy, they should definitely be a part of this program and help grow it; even people that are interested in being a part of the press should definitely join the team, help it grow, and make it as awesome as it can be.
Farihah [00:27:11] Yeah, so, I think these guys touched on it really well, like why MUN Impact is so awesome. So, my MUN Impact story is quite similar, actually. It was one lousy Sunday (or something, I think) and I was scrolling through Facebook, and I saw this ad on OMUN’s facebook page about, you know “hey, we have opportunities to join our leadership team, sign up”. And I thought “oh, what the hell, like, let me just give it a try, why not, could be fun”. At the time I was jumping at every plans I had to go to a conference, every chance that I had to develop myself as a delegate and as a leader in MUN. And this was about six months-ish ago, so a little bit before the pandemic started. So, yeah, I sort of signed up for OMUN and became a part of the leadership team. And, it was, from the very beginning, such an awesome experience, because I got to interact not just with other high school students, but also university-level students, who were the leaders of OMUN at the time. And I got to interact with them on a daily basis, and producing the debates for people all over the world online, and it was just an amazing amazing amazing amazing experience. And then, a couple months later, I got promoted to becoming the co-Secretary-General of the program, and the really awesome thing that we’re seeing right now with OMUN is the fact that we’re having the surge in our numbers for delegates who want to do MUN and want to continue their MUN experience online. That, overall, is just really awesome, so, in OMUN right now, we’re just sort of kind of learning with error and trial, figuring out how to best deal with this surge of delegates, how we can not just produce meaningful debates for delegates every two months, but also how we can actually make them impactful, or, sort of, action oriented, or make delegates aware of the issue in a greater matter than other conferences, so to speak. So that’s sort of how I became involved with OMUN - I saw an opportunity online to become involved with other world leaders, or kids who want to become world leaders. And I did it and I haven’t looked back since. And I think what I love about MUN Impact is simply the fact that every day when I wake up I have to sit through hundreds and, like, so many Slack messages and, just, these pings going off every second. And it’s so awesome to just see, like, this sort of beehive that we are, people collectively adding in ideas, brainstorming, and all of us together are making these huge and amazing things possible, like the Global Summit, or like any of our other programs, MUN@Home, jr.OMUN, OMUN. So, I think that’s what makes MUN Impact os awesome: just, the collective power of the youth that our whole leadership team is, or accumulates to, and I really hope that I can continue with the program until, honestly, probably until university.
Aanya [00:29:58] I definitely also have to add that, at the start, it was just a small, kind of, organization, and how, within the span of the year, it’s grown so much. It has such a huge leadership team full of youth, just inspired, motivated youth people that just want to bring about change in the world. And, like, how every day we have new diplomats coming in, new mentors coming in, and it just keeps on expanding. It’s just an amazing organization, and it’s kind of like a family now. We all see each other, like with meeting some day or another, always talking through Slack, so it’s just kind of like an MUN home, MUN family.
Erik [00:30:40] Alright! Thank you very much for all this incredibly well thought out and eloquent information, guys. I think that if any one of our listeners was on the fence about whether it was worth it or not to participate in the Summit 2.0, especially if they were in the Summit 2.1.. Uhm, in the first summit. I feel like our conversation today probably assuaged all doubts and showed them what is actually interesting and what is actually worth it about all this. And so, I’m really excited as an individual, as well as, obviously, as a podcast host, to continue - with my eyes open - to see what you guys are up to with the Summit in the coming weeks, and what we can expect as, as, as the Summit nears. And, for sure, this is not the last we’ll hear from you in the podcast, as well as in general. For example, I’d love to converse with Farihah about the current status and work of online MUN. And, the examples are certainly boundless. I think one of the good things about the podcast here is it gives a good platform for projects of the hour to have their light and to have their say and to show how the youth of today is indeed shaping the world more than we sometimes give them credit for. So, I’m really excited about all this, but unfortunately we have run out of time, so I’d like to thank you all once more, Hugh, Aanya, Farihah and Ilyes. I think that well, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your understanding of the situation as it currently stands, and our listeners are certainly very happy for all this. Thank you once more, but, for now we must away. So, if you enjoyed our content, don’t forget to like, share, follow, and show this to your friends and colleagues. But, until next time, we yield the floor!