US and China Teens Collaborate to Tackle Social Issues Exposed by COVID-19
San Francisco, CA -- August 13tH, 2020 -- On the Demo Day of Winter 2020 GenDream Class, teams presented innovative solutions to address the digital divide in remote education and health hazards of delivery pickup for the elderly during the pandemic.
GenDream Winter 20 Class Demo Day
A Closer Look at the Demo Day
The 12-week Winter 2020 Class of GenDream concluded on May 16 with a virtual Demo Day inspired by startup accelerator Y Combinator. The W20 Cohort draws 15 Community Leaders and 8 Coaches from 10 cities in the US and China, including two Community Leaders from Wuhan, China, who shared first-hand experience of living in the first city hit by the pandemic.
Since the program’s start coincided with the rapid development of the pandemic, the Community Leaders decided on building two social enterprise projects around salient issues that exposed the global health crisis. After finding out internet access is a common issue for underprivileged students in both countries, Team InterAction built a website to enable easy access to online education resources and faster Internet services to address the exacerbated digital divide during shelter-in-place. Inspired by the delivery experience from China-based community leaders, Team Delivery created a contactless delivery business to help senior citizens in the US to receive packages safely.
“Social entrepreneurship is rarely talked about in China. I was introduced to this concept for the first time through my GenDream experience- from sharing by real-life social entrepreneurs and collaborating on the internet project with other Community Leaders across the US and China. I want to further develop the idea of social enterprise and tell my friends about it.” said Sindy Huang, a Community Leader from Shanghai, after the completion of the program.
While building social enterprises to solve the most pressing issues, Community Leaders also enjoyed some favorite activities together: sharing their proudest cooking pictures, doing a virtual workout, and exchanging ideas of battles in world history. “I have been taking Chinese language class at school, but I have never met anyone from China. This program allowed me to get to know my peers from the other side at a personal level, regardless of what I hear in the news”, said Jack McDonnell, a Community Leader from San Francisco, California.
The Winter 20 program may have come to an end, but the Community Leaders are carrying their social enterprise ideas forward—Team InterAction continues to build out their website. Nearly half of the Community Leaders are returning as Peer Coaches--sparking new ideas, innovations, and friendships at a global scale.
What is GenDream
Founded by Lauren Dai and Jing Wang in 2019, GenDream is a cross-border leadership program for teenagers in the US and China. Its mission is to foster cross-border friendship among young leaders in the US and China through social entrepreneurship. “We started GenDream because we realized that with technology, we could scale what used to be an experience that only few would have to hundreds of thousands of young leaders globally.” said Lauren Dai, Co-founder of GenDream.
The program selects teens age 14-18 as Community Leaders and form cross-border project teams to tackle common social issues observed in both countries. Coached by startup founders and top-notch professionals in Silicon Valley and China, the program is conducted via Zoom each week.
Hear from Coaches and Community Leaders
When asked what motivated them to join GenDream in the first place, Coaches and Community Leaders all emphasized on the appeal of cross-border collaboration and learning. Hannah Shen, who joined GenDream as a Founding Coach, said that facilitating meaningful cross-cultural communications and collaborations has always been part of her identity and passion. “The mutual trust, learning, and friendship forged here are very precious in the backdrop of growing tension and mistrust between the two countries.” Jacob Yang, who was a Community Leader in the inaugural Summer 2019 Class and returned to GenDream as an Peer Assistant Coach in 2020 said that he joined the GenDream community to connect with students from US and China.
Become a GenDream Community Leader
Fall 2020 program is now open for application. The deadline for Fall 20 application is August 23rd, 2020, local time. If you want to join GenDream as a Community Leader, please apply today: https://www.gendreamleaders.org/apply
If you are interested in becoming a GenDream Coach, please reach out to: hello@gendreamleaders.org
Press contact: hannah@gendreamleaders.org