Biodiversity the focus as youth innovation contest closes in Dali

Ti Gong

Ti Gong

Students were honored at the 2023 Youth Innovation Competition on Global Governance on Sunday in Dali, southwest China's Yunnan Province, for their creative ideas on biodiversity protection.

First launched in 2007, the competition is an international public welfare program run by students from Fudan University's School of International Relations and Public Affairs to encourage youths worldwide to develop innovative solutions for global governance issues. In the past 16 years, it has attracted 2,359 contestants from 284 universities and institutions in 98 countries and regions, who have submitted about 800 proposals on various issues.

This year, 255 students from 50 universities in 49 countries and regions contributed their ideas on biodiversity promotion and 64 students made it to the final in Dali to continue their discussion.

Qin Jin, Xue Zhe and Peng Bo, three Chinese doctoral students at the University of Cambridge, were honored as the "Most Innovative Team" for their proposal during the preliminary round. They proposed to collect environmental DNA, or DNA fragments that organisms shed into the environment, for monitoring and research on biodiversity, which is believed to be non-invasive, highly sensitive and efficient.

During the final round in Dali, the 64 finalists were divided into nine "world teams" with members from different countries to work out new solutions on the theme of "Biodiversity Breeds Prosperity" in five days.

After field work, consultation with judges and discussion within teams, they submitted proposals such as promoting digital tourism and empowering grassroots communities for biodiversity protection in the Brazilian Cerrado area.

Qin and six other members from China, Hungary, Greece, Nepal, Morocco and Laos won the "Most Valuable Project" award with a proposal to increase public awareness and participation in protecting biodiversity with an informative and interactive application.

They suggested developing the app with functions including recognizing species by simply taking pictures. Users can also share photos of species found and design avatars for them to invite other users to find the same species. People can gain points for collecting each species and form teams for competition. Top performers can earn credits for cultural products, free tickets to nature reserves and discounted flight tickets.

Youth engagement

Qin, a law major, said that she was extremely happy to win both awards.

Qin had participated in other activities sponsored by the Shanghai Rong Chang Public Welfare Foundation and when she learned there was the YICGG with this year's theme on biodiversity, she didn't hesitate to register for it.

Yang Meiping / SHINE

"I think it's important for us young people all over the world to learn more about important governance issues to see if we can participate with some creative ideas," said Qin.

"And also for me, it's important because I can meet a lot of new friends here. And Dali is a beautiful place which I long wanted to visit. Now I think it's been a rewarding trip."

Qin said members of her team had a lot of ideas at first and they narrowed it down to the specific proposal of the app after consulting with the judges, who gave them critical comments and enlightening advice.

"There are already some apps that can help recognize plants and the Pokemon game is very popular. But they are not closely connected with biodiversity," she explained.

"So we hope to make an app that will include more biodiversity information, such as species listed as invasive species. And we would like to make it more interesting for young people by including a Pokemon like game."

Xue also said he was attracted to the competition for the field work session which took contestants to the Yunlong National Nature Reserve to learn about the biodiversity protection situation there.

"I found that eDNA is not a new approach for scientific research, but it has not been widely used in the governance area," he noted. "I wish to break the information barrier in such activities to let more people know about the technology."

Learn to compromise

Zephyr C Piranese Aptekar, an American economics major at Shanghai University, also enjoyed the competition, which brings students and judges from different countries, including developing and developed nations.

"It's quite challenging, but we do learn a lot," he said. "The judges are from different backgrounds. Some of them are professors of international relations. Some of them are lawyers. Some focus on biology and natural sciences. So you can learn different multidisciplinary fields."

Aptekar said that the process for team members from different backgrounds to compromise to reach an agreement on the proposal was also a learning process.

"There are a lot of different angles you can look at. If you can't compromise then we will have different arguments or different positions and we will be stuck. We won't come up with a proposal."

Though Aptekar's original idea focused more on policy suggestions for balancing economic growth and biodiversity, his team submitted a proposal to promote digital ecological tourism.

"I don't think people have just learned skills related to governance. I think a lot of us have learned skills about group work and compromises and working as a team, especially as a team from different backgrounds and different interests," he pointed out.

Knowledge sharing

Some students took the competition as an opportunity to acquire more knowledge and learn about China and other countries.

Neha Dahal, a student of Kathmandu University in Nepal and a member of the "Most Valuable Project" team, said her knowledge about biodiversity was enhanced during the competition.

"And it's my first time in China," she said. "I really love China and I will come back with my parents."

For some of the students, it was their second stint at the YICGG.

Takudzwa Duncan Maluwa, a Zimbabwean graduate from Beijing International Studies University, attended the competition for the first time in 2021, when a Chinese student he met during an intellectual exchange event invited him to be his partner for the YICGG.

"It was really impressive, more for me, because there were a lot of young people from good schools and smart people from different countries. I learned a lot about China and other countries as well," he suggested. "So I feel motivated to keep participating because each time there is a different topic that is very important."

As a major of international relations, Maluwa said his knowledge and passion about biodiversity also grew during the competition.

"For most of us, when we talk about biodiversity, we just think about maybe flowers and stuff like that, but since a lot of teams shared a lot of different things, right now, I know biodiversity is diverse. It's about animals, people, and a lot of things."

Maluwa revealed that he will share the knowledge on his social media account, which has more than 1,000 followers, and also his family. "I think I've gained something and I'm going to share with the world. It might be two people, but it's the start of a movement."

Maluwa said he will return to Zimbabwe for a gap year and is considering applying for a masters program at Fudan, Renmin or Tsinghua University in China.

Subconsciously prepared generation

Veronica Rebreanu, senior lecturer and faculty of law at Bebes-Bolyai University in Romania, has been a judge for five editions of the competition since 2014.

She noted that the competition is becoming better year by year and this year's event was very fruitful with new sessions, including a debate and the involvement of judges in the "We Youth Common Agenda."

The "We Youth Common Agenda" was an initiative released at the closing ceremony of the competition on Sunday to call on young people around the world to think of innovative solutions and propose feasible governance frameworks for biodiversity promotion and ecological protection.

"It makes people think together like a brainstorm, and these brainstorms bring more ideas," she said.

The judge said that it's important to engage young students on global governance issues, such as biodiversity, as they are a generation raised with information related to the theme.

"These students were born after the United Nations Framework Conventions 1972 and 1992, which launched the concept of sustainable development, so they have been raised with concepts such as responsibility, recycling and environmental protection," she pointed out.

"So their subconsciousness is already prepared to come up with some news ideas. It's very interesting that even if they don't know much theory, they come up with some solutions. Sometimes without knowing the path, they might find another path much better than the established one."