Global Solvers Co-Lab: Our Impact

The Global Solvers Co-Lab is a space to support the development of young SDG practitioners through a face-to-face exchange of ideas, practices and approaches. Designed around peer-learning and -impact, it strives to be a platform where emerging change agents from across the globe can explore, express, learn, collaborate and commit to concrete steps to advance sustainable development at the local and global level.
The first Co-Lab took place from 22 – 27 September 2018 in Aubervilliers, France, leading to ripples of social impact, as summarized below.

The Global Solvers Co-Lab is a unique collaboration space created by the Melton Foundation and its long-term partner and collaborator, the Ernst-Abbe-Stiftung. “Co- Lab” stands for a collaborative laboratory where ideas emerge and are tested in the real world through collective action. It aims to equip emerging, young, community leaders with the necessary skills to tackle the most pressing environmental, societal and economic challenges of our society. 

Friends, organizers, and the Sustainable Development Goals with them, the Co-Lab 489 participants pose as a team during the event.

With the support of our partners and co-organizers, the Global Solvers Co-Lab: 4-8-9 UN-limited generated tangible and goal-oriented commitments to action in areas revolving around the following Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

• Quality Education (Goal 4)
• Decent Work and Economic Growth (Goal 8)
• Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (Goal 9)

As we embark ahead to assess the impact of the convention, it is imperative to throw a light on the skills, tools, and personal and professional development that the participants gained by being a part of the event. With young leaders convening from all over the world, one of the primary goals of the Co-Lab is to enhance the intercultural communication skills of the participants. At the #CoLab489, aside from learning how to effectively communicate ‘across boundaries’, participants also divulged design thinking and systems thinking as key take-aways. The participants used empathy maps, a value proposition canvas, and learnt about the Pecha Kucha style of presentation to best exhibit their ideas.

The Co-Lab 489 in numbers: What was the most beneficial aspect for participants after they went back to their communities?

The aim of the Co-Lab is to keep up the networking momentum built during the event and constantly keep in touch with both the participants and the trainers to monitor the use of SDGs in their journeys, discuss possibilities to re-connect and draw from the network, and offer opportunities to share learnings with one another. In the three-month check-in call to follow up on the progress achieved, here’s a quick summary of what some participants had achieved so far: 

Curious for more? Click here for the complete impact report with data and insights to dive deeper into the impact of the Co-Lab 2018 and find out more about what Global Solvers are accomplishing in their local communities.

The Co-Lab was a learning experience that helped participants, trainers and organizers broaden their horizons, and fine tuned their ability leveraging their skills and networks effectively, to produce concrete and collaborative impact.

Join the movement and tune in for the 2020 edition of the Global Solvers Co-Lab here!