Mysuru,3rd December 2022: The fourth UNLEASH Global Innovation Lab, a week-long event, was launched with fanfare at Infosys, Mysuru, on Saturday and attended by leading dignitaries Shri Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamraja Wadiyar, Maharaja of Mysuru and Kailash Satyarthi, Nobel Peace Laureate.
The Government of Karnataka, a core partner for UNLEASH India, was represented by Dr. Ashwath Narayan C.N., Hon’ble Minister for Electronics & I.T.I.T.; Dr. E.V. Ramana Reddy, Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Karnataka; Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission; Smt. Meena Nagaraj C.N.C.N., Director and M.D.M.D., KITS.
During the ceremony, Shri Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamraja Wadiyar expressed his delight in Mysuru being chosen to host the UNLEASH Global Innovation Lab for this year.
He highlighted the former kingdom’s tryst with sustainability going as far back as the 1940s, remarking, “What we would call ‘Sustainable Development Programmes today was instilled during his (H.H.H.H. Jaya Chamarajendra Wadiyar’s) 5-year plans in 1940-1945. So, the Five-Year Plans that came about in those years echoed the same sentiments of the Sustainable Development Goals.”
Flemming Besenbacher, Chairman of UNLEASH, illustrated the potential of youth-led collective action for change through his address to the changemakers.
“If the COVID vaccine could be developed in just nine months through the joint efforts of people all over the world, I am optimistic about the power of collective action in addressing the major problems in the world today. Your excellence combined with the resources and mentors at UNLEASH can help move the needle on the U.N.U.N. SDGs at a global level.”
Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi inspired the young changemakers in attendance to create a just, peaceful and sustainable world through the power of ideas and increased consciousness. “A new history begins today. It depends on how much you believe in yourself, and I am sure that you believe in yourself,” Shri Satyarthi emphasized.
UNLEASH is a global initiative committed to obtaining youth together to share ideas, assemble networks and create inventive and scalable resolutions to help reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Over 1000 young participants from across the world and India have gathered at Infosys, Mysuru, where, during the week, they will work in teams to co-create solutions anchored by a design thinking process to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Teams will work across 7 SDG tracks and pitch their solutions at the end of the week to a panel of judges.
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