Entrepreneurship program inspires CQ Youth

Over 100 students converged on Yeppoon Town Hall today for the Livingstone Big Ideas Challenge, powered by Livingstone Shire Council and NBN. Students from five local schools joined the Livingstone Youth Action Group to ideate, prototype and pitch innovative social enterprise solutions to the real-world problems that matter to them.

Facilitated by Nicole Dyson from Future Anything, the Big Ideas Challenge comprised a series of engaging sessions, mixing hands-on ideation activities with discussion to foster project-based learning and student entrepreneurship.

The Big Ideas Challenge was well attended by students from Yeppoon State High School, St Ursula’s College, St Brendan’s College, North Rockhampton State High School and The Cathedral College Rockhampton.

Mayor Andy Ireland said increasing educational opportunities for local students is a priority for Council.

“We are driving economic growth in our region through nurturing local entrepreneurs,” Mayor Ireland said.

“The youth are our future, and we must harness their energetic spirit and empower them to learn and create.

“I trust the lessons learnt during the Challenge will stay with our school-aged entrepreneurs for some time, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they will build and create in the near future.”

Founder and CEO of Future Anything, Nicole Dyson, who designed and led the Challenge, said she was blown away by the creativity of the ideas that the students came up with.

“Many of our young people really do have the potential to bend the future,” Ms Dyson said.

“Our young innovators didn’t just generate some great social enterprise ideas; they unlocked their own personal passions, built enterprising mindsets and recognised their own potential to make meaningful change, in their own lives and in communities across Livingstone Shire and beyond.”