Abdullah Khurshid's post on Goodwall - On 1st February, it was the pitching session for the Youth Action Challenge (Economy Track) where after 3 months of hard work, we will pitch our solutions to to a panel of judges to get a grant and possibly get a chance to participate in the Youth Action Challenge Summit. From start to end, it was about 112 days (the whole programme started on 12th October 2019) . It was really not easy, seriously. From orientation to primary research to ideation to presentation, it was a real hustle. Furthermore our group was only made of 3 people so the workload was really tight. I'll be honest when I say this, one month away from the pitch I already gave up on the project as we were not making enough progress, mainly due to collecting data points for primary research, and I already made contingency plans to materialize our projects. Whenever we thought we had a lead, a whole barricade of obstacles came through. I was questioning whether that what I was doing was actually worthwhile? However, I know that I've been in similar situations before and one thing I had learnt was to always have faith. So I told myself to just have faith and do it for the experience, I still got a long way ahead of me and I can afford failures, sometimes you learn more from your mistakes. So I just kept pushing and before you know it, we managed to get what we needed with multiple long late night video calls and last minute consultations, we submitted our project form and prepared our presentation. Still, I was expecting the project pitch to fail. Come pitching day, I was literally full on YOLO. Whatever comes, I'll take it because we gave it our best and had no regrets. Whatever the outcome, we will move on from there. We were the tenth team to pitch out of fourteen teams. The first few teams gave their pitches. The first thing that came to mind was that the judging panel was an absolute firing line, like they were holding nothing back. Second thought that came into mind was that our ideas weren't that "sexy" compared to others, but hey, if I know one thing is that complicated problems have simple solutions. Soon our turn came. What we did was a skit to present our ideas, more of a conversation between two friends with one emulating our beneficiaries and the other presenting the solutions to the stated problems. It closed off with a summary and I could say that it was pretty well received or at least, different from your standard pitches because the audience actually laughed. After all the group's presented we had a break, debrief and collected our certificates at which we will know if we got the grant or not. I remember that the when team before us was collecting their certificates, they were immediately told that they got the grant. When we were collecting our certificates, we weren't told that we got the grant or not. Me: "So we didn't get the grant right ?" Person: "What makes you say that?" Me: "I don't think our ideas were that great" Person:"You actually got it" I broke out in euphoria. I know it doesn't seem much but this was a first for me. At least all our hard work payed off. So I guess you can say that the day ended on a good note. However, the real challenge starts now in making our idea come alive and sustainable. Though we didn't qualify for the YAC Summit, this could be a good starting point. (Let me make that clear, don't wanna get the wrong idea) I just wanted to say thank you for all those who helped us, who trusted us, and I was fortunate enough to have talented & experienced team members and helpful mentors to guide us throughout out and provide opportunities. To everyone considering participating in the next iteration of YAC, just go for it, you'll have a great experience and meet amazing people. As stated, we are getting started and we appreciate that if anyone is willing to provide pro-bono consulting on; 1) Social Impact Management 2) Systems Thinking 3) Game Theory 4) HR Management 5) Designing Thinking Also if anyone wants to join us, hit me up and we can have a conversation.