Young Myanmar innovator presents winning solution to address youth unemployment

02 June 2016
Young Myanmar innovator presents winning solution to address youth unemployment

Telenor Group recently organized a two-day forum - Telenor Youth Forum Asia - to explore, discuss and develop solutions to some of the most daunting challenges facing Asia’s youth, the group said in a statement.
Held in Bangkok from May 25-26,the forum saw one of Myanmar’s delegates presenting the winning solution, directed at addressing youth employment. The regionally-focused Forum centered on fighting youth joblessness, getting more girls into schools, educating young labourers, breaking the taboo of mental health, and engaging youth in national dialogue.
Phyo Thura Htay from Myanmar was part of a team that developed a solution for tackling youth unemployment, which was chosen as the best presentation at the Forum. Youth unemployment is more than double the rate of the total working population and working poverty is significantly higher for workers in young age brackets across Asia. The team proposed the development of an online portal to address both current joblessness and prevent future unemployment by helping young people make the right life decisions, explore occupations and take online learning courses. This winning team will be invited to Oslo, Norway, as featured speakers in this year’s upcoming global Telenor Youth Forum, held in partnership with the Nobel Peace Centre.
“The creative, inspiring solutions presented by the delegates is a testament to the incredible potential that is available within youth all across Asia,” said KarianneMelleby, Head of Global Partnerships, Telenor Group. “We look forward to continuing the dialogue with these participants in order to support the possibility of bringing these solutions to life as real, scalable programs to benefit their peers.”
Teams of 29 delegates were guided by world-class mentors and speakers from organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme, UNICEF Global Innovation Centre and the Nobel Peace Centre, who provided expert resources for strategy building, design planning and solution delivery.