JA Worldwide's Highlights from UNGA Week 2024

October 8, 2024

JA Worldwide leaders joined UN General Assembly (UNGA) week side events across New York City in September. UNGA week events bring together leaders from government, business, and civil society to discuss global challenges and share innovative solutions. Although only heads of state are allowed to attend the office General Assembly meetings at United Nations headquarters, both for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations held panels and meetings of their own to discuss human rights, climate action, education, and more.

JA Worldwide Chief Development Officer Leo Martellotto reflected on the experience: “UNGA week was amazing, not just because what happened during those five days, but what happened before. The whole team, led by Don Sedlock on our side, working closely with Tere Stouffer, put together an incredible agenda. If you count all the side events and all the one-on-one meetings, we had more than 30 different interactions with JA partners from around the world. For me, it was a dream come true to meet with so many global stakeholders. With the whole team backing us up while we were there, it's a great example of how we’re collaborating to expand our horizons in terms of the people we are working with and the partnerships that we're putting together.”

In addition to our CEO Asheesh Advani sitting on several panels, we hosted two youth-focused panels, all of which we cover in this blog post.

Panels JA Attended

We sat down with Asheesh to discuss UNGA and why these panels and meetings matter. “JA’s extensive distribution network in over 100 countries gives us a unique perspective on education and skill development that adds value to dialogues about the execution of the UN Global Goals (SDGs). Many of JA’s global partners attend sessions during UNGA and invite us to be part of the discussion, part of the action plans, and part of the planning for how we build a more equitable world.”

“I was able to attend for only two days, but it was jam-packed. On Monday morning, bright and early, we kicked off with a meeting with one of JA’s largest funders, Z Zurich Foundation. It was a great meeting and provided a fantastic opportunity to reconnect. I had just returned from One Young World in Montreal, where I shared the stage with Gary Shaughnessy, the Chair of Z Zurich Foundation. It was wonderful to meet with Grégory Ranand, head of Z Zurich Foundation, just two days after that.

“Later that day, I attended the Generation Unlimited Green Rising panel, focused on driving green action by young entrepreneurs in communities around the world, and met with the team from UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited. Green Rising is a movement we’re proud to support and magnify with partners such as Generation Unlimited, the Scout Movement, and Goodwall. So many JA alumni entrepreneurs who went through the JA Company Program, JA Startup, and more are engaged in building businesses and designing products that promote sustainability. This is particularly timely because of the work led by the education team at JA Worldwide to modernize JA Company Program—in collaboration with each of our six regional operating centers—with new content and modules, including a focus on climate change and sustainability.”

“On Tuesday, I started with a Generation Unlimited breakfast meeting about strategic public-private youth partnerships. After that, I participated in a panel discussion, “Inclusion for All: From Learning to Leading,” which included three members of the JA Worldwide Board of Governors. Gus Schmedlen, Chief Revenue Officer at TextHelp hosted the session and distributed copies of my book Modern Achievement to all the guests—thank you, Gus! JA Worldwide board member Jay Persaud from EY was the first speaker on our panel and was passionate in his remarks about inclusion in the workplace. Finally, Rebecca Winthrop, Director of the Center for Universal Education at Brookings and a JA board member, provided the inspirational closing remarks. It’s rare that I attend an event with three JA board members serving as speakers. By the end of the session, everyone in the room was aware of Junior Achievement’s impact around the world and our commitment to empowering the underserved and UN Global Goal 4.”

“Next, I participated in a panel with the World Organization of the Scout Movement. This session included notable figures like Felipe Paullier (Assistant Secretary-General for Youth Affairs at the UN) and Ahmad Alhendawi (former UN Youth Envoy, who has been leading the Scout Movement for the last seven years). The Scout Movement has been a great partner to JA, especially in regions like the Americas and Africa, where we leverage each other’s distribution networks to deliver educational programs to young people.

“In the evening we also met Marcus Chiu, who works with the Institute of Philanthropy in Hong Kong and is researching how philanthropy in Asia region is changing.”

While I was busy, the rest of the team attended a number of other sessions, including two of note that focused on AI and how it intersects with our work:

  • “AI and Global Education: Identifying Risks to Harness Opportunities” from the Center for Universal Education (CUE) and the new Global Task Force on AI and Education at the Brookings Institution, hosted by EY Ripples at its interactive Wavespace. The interactive agenda included small group work in which participants envisioned a world in which AI had fulfilled all of its potential in the education space, and a world in which AI had been another failed promise.

  • “Building Strategic AI Alliances for Global Impact” from EY and Devex, at which the two organizations launched a new report: Inclusive Innovation: an inside look at AI’s potential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The event also discussed insight and findings from the AI for Social Innovation reports, produced in collaboration with the World Economic Forum.

Panels JA Hosted

Delivering on our promise to elevate youth voices at global convenings, we teamed up with Junior Achievement of New York to organize an UNGA week conversation between young people and corporate senior executives, held at JA Finance Park in Manhattan.

Young people ages 16–25 asked targeted questions of senior executives from Accenture, Avanade, Microsoft, and Zurich Insurance, focusing on how these companies are gearing up for the workplace of the future. Topics included environmental commitments, gender equality, skills-based education and training, AI, workplace norms, and more.

Our youth leader panelists included the following superstars:

  • Christian Mazzarese, Junior Achievement of New York

  • Charlotte Nebres, Girl Scouts of Northern New Jersey

  • Shivansh Shalabh, UNICEF/Generation Unlimited

Tere Stouffer moderated the panel. Our corporate executive panelists included:

Watch the panel, below.

On Thursday, JA Worldwide and Z Zurich Foundation co-hosted a “Creating Inclusive Funding Opportunities for Young Entrepreneurs" panel at the Zurich office at Four World Trade Center. Funding ecosystems are often concentrated in specific regions like big cities and tech corridors. Young entrepreneurs outside these hubs face additional barriers due to the lack of local funding infrastructure and the challenges of accessing international investors.

Leo Martellotto (wearing JA-branded socks) moderated the discussion about youth entrepreneurs and alternative funding for businesses. Panelists shared perspectives from different industries and different parts of the world:

Watch the panel, below.

JA Worldwide is committed to attending global convenings—like the UN General Assembly in New York, the COP climate conference in various locations, the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, and more, in order to help shape the conversation (especially around education, the future of work, and entrepreneurship) and to elevate youth voices and the issues that matter most to young people.

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