Deliverables for AUS 2019
Theme
Harnessing Untapped Potential: Creating Sustainable Synergies
Problem Statement
Create a synergy that is sustainable and meets the identified needs in an innovative manner.
Living in a world where we have seen exponential growth in many industries, we are often accustomed to taking things for granted. More often than not, we glance over opportunities in favour of the familiar and in AUS 2019, we aim to step out of our comfort zones and actively harness these opportunities that we have been neglecting. AUS 2019 challenges its participants to identify and utilize resources that are underemployed to reach its full productivity.
Specifically, the Singapore leg pushes its participants to synergize sectors to create additional value that would not have been realised had these sectors operated alone. The ultimate goal is then to create and initiate a potential project that creates this additional value for our society in a feasible and workable manner.
The deliverables of AUS 2019 are displayed below. Please click on each project description or poster to find out more about each group's project!
GROUP 1
Connexus
Project Description
We aim to establish a café within an existing community centre. The aim of this café is to promote interactions between juvenile offenders and the elderly in a healthy and stimulating environment. This can be achieved by pairing juvenile offenders and the elderly by comparing their profiles and matching them according to their interests. Through the cooperation of both parties, conversations can be fostered and experiences can be shared. At the end of the day, reflection sessions can be conducted, where both parties are able to engage in casual and organic conversations about their daily lives. Research shows that juvenile offenders commit offences or re-offend due to unhealthy family environments, or have endured abuse in their younger days. This initiative creates a system of support rooted in the larger community as opposed to restricting them to sterile and controlled rehabilitation environments. The elderly serves as a parent figure in place of the youth’s unstable environments and act as a catalyst for their character development. Simultaneously, the elderly may feel valued at the prospect of changing lives for the better, and address their need for companionship.
GROUP 2
P.A.L.S: Prisoners Assisstance Learning Service
Project Description
The first part of the solution is to study current rehabilitation initiatives of different countries and to provide an extension to the same by the way of further strengthening the psychological support and vocational training. This will be done in a number of ways, a proposed example of the same being integration of the prison inmates with animals from shelters; to foster an emotional connection for the purpose of developing important emotional characteristics like empathy in the inmates while creating more awareness about animal rights from within the prison. While the above solution serves the psychological aspect of rehabilitation of the prison inmates, to take care of the vocational and livelihood aspect in corollary with the Doha Declaration of UNODC catering to the rehabilitation and social integration of prisoners, the idea is to create, promote and support self-sustainable brands of prison products which would act as a source of gaining employable skills to assist in the inmates’ social reintegration. As an incentive for the inmate to voluntarily participate in such a program, a part of the amount raised from the sales of the environmental-friendly products promoting issues like animal rights would be given to the family of the inmate while the other part(s) will be donated to various socially-inclined entities. These same inmates, after being reintegrated shall have the opportunity to work with the same enterprise so created. The above will be tried and tested in a few prisons as a pilot project post which, scalability would be addressed.
GROUP 3
Hands to Home
Project Description
Our plan connects housewives to socially conscious individuals that are keen to donate materials for recycling. The synergy that is being created is between skills possessed by talented housewives and sustainable environmental practices that aim at using recycled material. This symbiotic relationship would tap on the talent of housewives that have been denied entry into the workforce due to gender norms and allow them to put soft skills to create products from recycled material. This is line with sociological concerns around gender roles and the SDG goals given under the UNDP. Most women that are stay at home are financially dependent and are burdened by societal perception that “homecare” is not a real job. This plan would give them a source of employment and in the long term allow entry into the economic workforce. Using recycled material would permeate environmental concerns among cultural practices.
GROUP 4
Zero2Hero
Project Description
Singapore faces an ageing population and relies heavily on foreign talent to ensure the continued well-being of the elderly. This places an enormous stress on the existing limited pool of labour force. On the other hand, a large proportion of the stray dogs are culled due to space restraints that confronts SPCA. In line with a more humane approach to stray dogs, we propose the synergy between the elderly and the stray dogs from SPCA shelters. This addresses the need for the dogs to be rehoused and the potential of dogs as forms of therapy for elders that have been severely underutilized and untapped resource. The synergy reduces the dependency of elders on the small labour force and improves the overall well-being of the elderly.
GROUP 5
Count On Three
Project Description
“Count On Three” entails giving opportunities for children in slums to get education while providing the chances for practicing students in universities to hone their skills in real time application. It aims to give children in slums access to universities, and the freedom to choose their education. Hence, enhancing their quality of life and inclusion into the mainstream community of the country. In the meantime, we plan to collaborate with companies to sponsor/support this initiative. Companies get a wider consumer base and potential manpower. This initiative aims to create a synergy between three entities - children urban slum dwellers, a university, and companies. Our group identified that children living in slums do not get the opportunity to proper education even if they are willing to learn. On the other hand, students in universities do not have enough experience to apply their knowledge in the real world. Through our initiative, both of these pain points are addressed in a sustainable manner. Additionally, to further support the initiative, a third entity is tapped in the form of companies. Ideally, they will sponsor the initiative, mainly through advertisements resources for the purpose of social benefits and not just CSR.
GROUP 6
HOTELderly
Project Description
Creating a platform (in the form of an app) to bridge the gap between the old and the rest of the society. This platform provides an authentic experience for travellers/tourists who wants to learn about the culture of the country they are visiting directly from the elders as the elderly have more life experience. This is done through living in the elders’ household and going for tours led by the elders themselves. In exchange, the elders would have more interaction and companionship with tourists.
A lot of culture gets lost between time and goes unarchived. The elderly citizens often go unnoticed, the main carriers of heritage in society. Cultures and traditions reside amongst the elders and that’s the potential we’re trying to tap here. Local stories, and authentic firsthand experiences in history aren’t documented enough. Most of the time when people travel, they visit cultural sites but many tend to ignore that tourist sites are curated and lack a certain sense of authenticity. The type of tourists we want to target are tourists who want this authentic experience. As a result of technology advancing at breakneck speed, the elderly tend to have greater difficulty keeping up and integrating into society. Therefore, many become virtually invisible and excluded from the whole society. We connect the elderlies that have authentic and specific knowledge about the culture, they have lots of leisure time, and they need companion. These activities would help them to bring about meaningful changes to the society through cultural sharing and it encourages them to live a life of purpose after retirement.
GROUP 7
FoodTechcurity
Project Description
The agricultural sector is facing a decline in manpower that can directly affect food security. The use of automation and technology is introduced to engage the youth and elderly to continue work in the agricultural sectors. The goal is to rekindle interest among disinclined youth in agriculture, bringing in convenience through automated machine and an app which involve maintenance management large scale quality production of crops. Our solution aims to integrate PESTEL (Politics, economics, society, technology, environment and law) framework in order to ensure its sustainability across various stakeholders with a long-term view in mind.
The aim is to create a sustainable synergy between the agricultural sector, youth and elderly demographic, and technological sector through the use of mobile applications and automated machines in agricultural activities. The lack of manpower in the agricultural sector can be addressed through equipping farmers with automated technology. Elderly farmers, who have extensive agricultural knowledge and experience, will use a mobile application to control the automated machines. In addition to that synergy, the younger generation can also be engaged and interested in application-based agriculture.
GROUP 8
SocialLife
Project Description
The proposed “Socialife” would be a built-in application that tracks the amount of social media usage per day. Depending on the purpose of social media usage, the user can set a usage limit for themselves within the app’s suggested number of hours. By remaining within the time limit will give users points or “likes”, whereas exceeding it would lead to a deduction thereof. In case of constant overuse over a period of days, the user’s access to social networking sites is shut, and users have to choose a nearby “Profile” (a physical location for a partner NGO) where they can redeem social service (eg: at a home for the elderly) for “likes” by scanning a QR code at the venue after completion. Users can also redeem surplus accumulation of points for discounts on healthcare benefits. Thus, a synergy would be created between social media usage, social work and health care.
GROUP 9
THISability
Project Description
Differently abled people need to be integrated with society because they are currently being stigmatized as a liability. To achieve this, we want to raise economic accessibility to jobs for these people, and through that, end the stigmatization they face.
1. Provide jobs and skills training for differently abled people
2. Increase inclusivity of differently abled people with the rest of society and promote empathy for differently abled people
3. Create incentives for the public to integrate differently abled people
GROUP 10
Kalakrithi
Project Description
There is a lack of interest amongst the youth in both the preservation and promotion of cultural resources. This needs to be rectified for a number of reasons which shall be explained later. In order to do so, we have proposed to synergise multiple generations with cultural resources through technological mediums by developing an app which includes a number of functions such as a daylong culturally submersive experience, social media aspects etc. The main synergies that are being created are between the youth of various countries and their respective cultural resources through technology and also between the youth as well as the elderly, ie. Intergenerational synergies.
GROUP 11
Voice of Indigenous People (VIP)
Project Description
In our modern society, university students get caught up in the grind of city life and tend to forget/ignore the indigenous community and the issues pertaining to them. The Indigenous People (IP) too tend to remain oblivious to their rights as citizens of their respective countries and are subject to widespread exploitation. Our unique Exchange Program caters to both these issues by providing a forum for cultural, traditional, knowledge and practice- based discussions. Students will be accommodated in a home-stay where they can immerse themselves in the indigenous people’s day-to-day activities with the intention to learn. On the other hand, the IP can take part in specialized university programs consisting of micro courses such as money management, health care, language, and laws pertaining to their rights. To sum it all up, a student-led exhibition, which will be held on the World’s Indigenous People’s Day, allows the showcase of their unique culture and provides opportunities for both handicrafts and produce made by the indigenous people to be sold. Additionally, they will also be able to share their perspective with a larger audience through the human library component.
GROUP 12
Athlete-o-Pedia
Project Description
Our project aims to support a culture of healthy lifestyle by connecting people. The current problem we are addressing is society's lower involvement in recreational sports activities. This problem is due to lack of venues and training mentors, an excessive gaming culture, addiction to social media and the perceived time-consuming nature of sports. Thus, we aim to develop an application to minimize the hassle of pre-process by quickly finding mentors and available venues.
GROUP 13
HoHoBus
Project Description
Our initiative is to create a bus where people can hop on and hop off. The bus will contain a mini-market wherein locals and migrants hold booths to showcase and experience each other's cultures. It houses local food, products, audio visual exhibitions, local handicrafts, food, dances, places in the country (postcards), selling traditional handicrafts through e-commerce websites, documentaries/Vlogs. Make the world smaller with just one bus!
GROUP 14
FARMageddon
Project Description
During unforeseen, disastrous situations, many agricultural units become incapable of supplying farm products. As a consequence, families and individuals struggle from the unstable supply of food. There is an imminent need for authorities to take action so that the basic resources are produced and distributed efficiently.
Our group aim to implement a sustainable disaster-resistant vertical farming for the disaster-stricken and the unemployed in the disaster-prone rural areas. This would consist of two operational stages, namely, pre-disaster preparation involving food production and storage and post-disaster operation involving food distribution and job provision.
GROUP 15
Knitting Hearts and Homes
Project Description
The cooperation among the elderly, community, and entities such as local fashion retailers and educational institutions to provide a platform to generate employment and interaction for the elderly, while encompassing an environmentally conscious entrepreneurial aspect into it. We do this by upcycling and remodelling used and unsold clothes into new eco-friendly products. The clothes are donated by the community, which will be collected via educational institutions and fashion retailers. These are then revitalised and upcycled by the elderly and youth volunteers in our workspaces.
For the elderly, it addresses their needs of financial support by providing employment and human interaction. For our partner entities, it is a sustainable method of discarding their unwanted clothes. For the community, it serves the need of being an eco-friendly commercial activity (upcycling) in this time of dire climate emergency, while also providing a platform for intergenerational exchanges between the elderly and the youth through an inclusive business model.