JA Labs: Round Three Winner Announced
November 19, 2019
The winner of round three of JA Labs was announced this afternoon at the 2019 JA Global Leadership Conference (GLC) in Berlin, Germany.
Citi Foundation, the lead supporter of the 2019 Global Leadership Conference, provided $50,000 for the third round. JA Labs is an innovation grant funded by Citi Foundation that’s awarded to JA locations throughout the network. The mission of the fund is to create an organizational culture that rewards creativity, out-of-the-box thinking, and calculated risk-taking. Over the course of three rounds, Citi Foundation has provided more than $225,000 in funding to JA Labs recipients.
Previous JA Labs winners include JA Singapore for its virtual-reality job shadow program; JA Northern California for S.H.E. Leads, a career exposure events for girls; JA Italy for UPSHIFT, an entrepreneurship education program for young migrants in Italy; JA Bulgaria for GREENT, a green entrepreneurship program. Applicants may submit ideas for expanding programs that have already been implemented or piloted, or they may propose an entirely new concept. All JA Labs winners focus on innovation and youth entrepreneurship. According to Milena Stoycheva, CEO, JA Bulgaria, the flexible funding from Citi Foundation and JA Labs “creates unique opportunities for JA locations to collaborate across continents.”
Round three applications focused specifically on innovation in the JA Company Program, JA’s flagship learning experience, through which young people build companies with real products and services that they sell to the general public. Applications from JA locations around the world included ideas ranging from innovative mentoring programs to coding workshops. Winners were selected by an awards committee composed of the JA Senior Leadership Team—JA Worldwide’s headquarters management team plus the CEO/president of each of the six JA regional operating centers (JA Africa, INJAZ Al-Arab JA MENA, JA Americas, JA Asia Pacific, JA Europe, JA USA). The awards committee assessed and scored applications based on innovation in the JA Company Program and the ability to incentivize change, expected impact on youth, and the potential for replication throughout the network.
At the GLC, JA Worldwide Global Chief Development Officer Brandie Conforti led a panel of past JA Labs recipients in a thought-provoking discussion of best practices realized as a result of the programs funded in the past two rounds. “Citi has supported JA for 32-plus years,” she said. “And over the past two years, Citi Foundation has provided over $225,000 for JA Labs.”
Dorothy Stuehmke, Senior Program Officer, Citi Foundation, and representatives of three previous JA Labs funding recipients—Livia Di Nardo, Development Director of JA Italy; Milena Stoycheva, CEO of JA Bulgaria; and Hau Yee Ng, Director of JA Singapore—joined in the panel discussion, which also included an overview of each location’s JA Labs impact.
Following the panel discussion, Stuehmke and JA Worldwide Board Chair Francesco Vanni d’Archirafi, Vice Chairman, Institutional Clients Group, EMEA Citi, took the stage to announce the winner of round three: INJAZ Lebanon
INJAZ Lebanon will produce an Arabic version of the blended JA Company Program by digitizing, localizing, and gamifying many parts of the program; making it accessible through mobile devices; and facilitating students’ experiential learning in business and management. According to INJAZ Lebanon’s application, the grant will help even more young people “discover the joy of learning, the value of education, and the impact it can have on their lives while increasing funding opportunities for international donors.” INJAZ Lebanon will also develop a module for inclusion of youth with disabilities at a later stage.
INJAZ Lebanon’s application impressed the awards committee with its timeliness, which will help respond to the influx of Syrian refugees and the dire economic situation in Lebanon. The judges also noted INJAZ Lebanon’s special focus on entrepreneurship training and self-employment for both refugees and vulnerable Lebanese youths, giving them opportunities to improve their economic situations and prospects for their futures.
Congratulations to INJAZ Lebanon and every previous winner of JA Labs.