The closing ceremony of Rong Chang Cup Youth Innovation Competition on Global Governance (YICGG) 2022 was held on August 21. With the theme of “Governance of COVID-19 Pandemic: Global Response and Youth Voice” this year, the competition has attracted 188 participants from 58 universities around the world.
The contestants raised a total of 63 proposals from different perspectives such as epidemic prevention and control, economic recovery and digital governance based on detailed case analysis, providing diversified solutions to global health governance.
“My YICGG experience is much more than conducting research or writing papers. It was also about learning from peers and pooling wisdom. It’s of great importance to try to change the world with our own efforts,” said Fudan student Li Tianqin, winner of The Most Innovative Team Award this year.
Li’s team tapped the possibility of application of blockchain in healthcare, hoping to apply information technology in public management to help prevent and control COVID-19. They proposed a blockchain-based contact tracing system that would spread in a peer-to-peer way through “keys” among individuals, medical institutions and governments.
“We hope to leverage blockchain’s unique advantages of decentralization, transparency, and compatibility to help governments, institutions and businesses overcome the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Li.
A total of 66 contestants from 14 countries were selected from the preliminary round after rigorous evaluation. As a judge of the competition, Iveta Reinholde, professor at University of Latvia, helped the contestants improve their projects by putting forward suggestions in terms of public interest, operability, long-term and short-term effects. Since the students’ solutions were all very unique and novel, Reinholde said it was not easy for her to give scores.
This year, the final round of the competition consisted of 3 online sessions. In “Ignite Talk” session, contestants focused on the global governance of public health. Dimitria Giovanna Costa Ferreira, a contestant from Brazil, said she hoped more voices from the youth could be heard with more forums, communities, digital activities organized for the youth. In the “World Café” session, the contestants shared their views on the impact of the pandemic and post-pandemic recovery and presented 27 innovative proposals on the future of global public health cooperation in the final presentation session.
Chen Zhimin, vice president of Fudan University and Wang Jianming, chairman of Shanghai Rong Chang Public Welfare Foundation, delivered speeches at the ceremony.
In order to cope with the impact of the pandemic, the competition was held online for the first time this year. Contestants from Angola, Bangladesh, Brazil, Brunei, Cameroon, Ecuador, Germany, Ghana, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Cambodia, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Tanzania, Thailand, UK, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and China participated in this competition.
According to the organizing committee, the competition received 2,262 applications from 266 universities, and more than 693 proposals submitted by the applicants since 2007. As 38 universities and institutions at home and abroad, including Arizona state university, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Tribhuvan University, Laurentian University, newly joined YICGG, a growing number of young people become members of the youth network on global governance.
Launched by Fudan University and the United Nations Development Programme in 2007, YICGG has grown to be an international platform of the youth, by the youth and for the youth, pooling wisdom of the youth from all over the world on frontier global governance issues.
Presented by Fudan University Media Center
