 We'll be talking about youth-initiated innovations and this is by HALT Prize. HALT Prize is the competition and HALT Prize Foundation is the foundation and we are joined by Cliff Nyakundi who's the African Regional Manager, HALT Prize Foundation. Cliff, Karebo. Glad to have you with us. Yeah, so, you know, you can introduce yourself. I've mentioned your title, so what do you do? Exactly. I mean, you said it perfectly. My name is Cliff Nyakundi, the regional manager for Africa, the HALT Prize Foundation. And my job really is to ensure that we're able to spread impact across all the 55 countries in this continent and also to ensure that we're able to engage as many youth as possible, give them a platform to launch for good and for profit social enterprises for a million U.S. dollars. All right. So now, the HALT Prize. Yes. So talk about the HALT Prize, you know. Well, what the HALT Prize does, many people have called it the Nobel Peace Prize of young people. That's Bill Clinton's quote. Basically, we give young people an opportunity to look at the world's most pressing social needs and coming up with solutions to those problems. Every year, we look at what is the contemporary issue for this year. And then we come up with a theme. For example, this year's theme has been on getting the world back to work. Last year was food for good. So we organize competitions through campus directors in every university, college, and institution, any institution of higher learning. And then after that, they proceed to the regional level where they compete with other entrepreneurs from other countries. And then the winners of the regionals proceed to the accelerator in Boston in U.S. for six weeks. And then after that, we award a million years dollars to the winner, the U.N. Finance. Okay. That's good money. That's a hundred million Kenyan shillings. That's good. And so far, has any Kenyan won the prize? Of course. Of course. 2015 winners were called Magic Pass. Right now they're called Boop Pass. Basically, if you ever used, if you ever booked an SGR ticket online or booked any plane ticket from Wilson Airport, you used the Boop Pass technology. And right now they expanded to Tanzania, Uganda, and just last year, Cameroon. Amazing. So we have won it. We have won it. We have taken the trophy home. I know. Where were you in 2015? Where was I? We had winners. I should have known you back in the day. We can't blame you. Now I do, and I'm not in campus sadly. So is it only limited to campus students? If you're in a college, if you're in a polytechnic, if you're in a university, studying undergraduate, diploma, master's or PhD, you qualify. So okay. So as long as you're in the tertiary institution, yes. So what is the reason behind that? This is because these are already young people who are engaged in something. When you want to grow an organization globally, you have to do it through established systems and mainly educational systems. But it's in our mind. It's something we're looking into to engage the larger population, but we need assistance that will work. Currently, I have a team of 30 staff within Africa, but for us to get assistance that will work in every country to engage people, even outside the institutions, we need time. We need the resources. So we're slowly getting there. Yeah, because I was about to ask, you know, you've said young people, but young people are also outside the university, you know, maybe outside the institutions. Yeah, but you're doing good. And so now why, why is it, you know, for social impact? Why, why, why do you say the need for that? This is because we reason like this for the world to move forward. The future of business is making money while impacting your society. If you're making money and no one is feeling the impact that you're doing, then you're doing zero work. We want every young person to think impact, to think market driven, to also think profit minded. Those are three pillars. Okay, so not, not just any business. So how, how would one differentiate it? You know, someone's an entrepreneur, but how, how would they say that the business is not, you know, impacting the society? They just have, you know, their own business, then they've employed people. Is that not enough? You're creating employment. Well, you need to look at social impact. Is there anything that you're directly addressing that will impact the community where your business operates? For example, let's say food for good. Any initiative that comes out of that topic is likely to impact the people where that business is operating from. So just from our theme, we are able to drive initiatives that will first impact the society and also make profits. Okay, so now the themes. How do you come up with the themes? Who comes up with the themes? And are they, you know, directly, you know, come from the SDGs? Yes, we involve the UN SDGs a lot. By the way, United Nations is one of our partners, the youth office, the global youth office for United Nations. And one of the things we do, we have a team of a pool of experts from within and also from outside. So what they do, they sit down and look at what is the most contemporary issue of that year and where is the world moving into. So like, for example, right now, we did getting the world back to work because we're coming out of COVID. We need to think business employment may not be sustainable. How can we come up with initiatives that will impact the world but also create 10,000 jobs within the next two years? Food for good last year, there was a food crisis. Everyone was at home. People are not farming and everything. How can we come up with creative ways of doing, for example, farming while you're at your home, while you're at our apartment, you don't necessarily need five acres of land? How can we creatively come up with solutions to the world's most pressing needs? All right. And now, you know, from the innovations, are they just, you know, with students from a particular field because, you know, we speak to innovation and people, you know, really have the idea that it's only the engineering students or the IT students. So how do you open up to other students? You'll be surprised. As long as you're a student, you can participate. I'll give you an example. Last year, I attended the University of Nairobi on campus event final. The team was on food for good. Civil engineer students are the ones who won, not even at the school of sciences of agriculture students. Yeah, you would think the agriculture students would have it. Exactly. Exactly. We once had, maximizing on the power of energy team a couple of years ago, our global winners were business students. And with no experience in the energy, mining and petroleum sector, they just thought, hey, this is what I experience. I feel every day. And then they started, you know, sharing the ideas with everyone, doing their research. And they won a million years. Okay. So that takes a lot. So how is the structure, because I'm imagining the leadership really matters for, you know, the students in the university doing this thing, especially for someone who doesn't have no knowledge, you know, as you've said, someone from, what's the faculty again? Energy. From energy, you know, winning something on agriculture. So how is the structure like, how's the leadership like? Okay. So every year we hire campus directors from every institution. Campus directors are basically club chairpersons or student ambassadors who help organize the main function within the school. So the campus directors look for mentors, coaches, and we provide them with the resources to ensure that the work is successful. I'm a former campus director myself. My colleague, John here, was also a former campus director for the UN, for example. So the campus director organizes the competitions. They organize speech competitions, information sessions, training sessions, and then they do an on campus for now. We are the best team now, proceeds to the regionals. So every university will have a team proceeding to a regional of their choice. You don't really have to go to an Africa region or you can go anywhere. So you have that choice? Yes, yes, yes. Actually, last year, MMU students won the Dubai regional summit, for example. Amazing, MMU. I'm an alumni of MMU. I got you there. I recognize that. Yeah. Oh, okay. That's amazing. Yeah. And then after that, they proceeded to our accelerator, though last year we had to do digitally the whole of it because of COVID. Yes. And then after the accelerator, they now move into finals to win. So that's basically the whole structure. It takes about nine months. About nine months for the whole competition to work out. And now, you know, still on the campus director, do they do it on their own or do they have a team behind them? And you know, how do they get the mentors? Do you sponsor them? Where do they get the funding? Because it all takes funds to bring this together. And are they awards at the university level before coming to, you know, the next level, the regional level and everything? Our health price mantra is the team makes the dream work. We encourage campus directors to recruit organizing committees. So the first thing we do, we recruit campus directors and then we train them how to support gifted students, how to run a non-campus program. We give them their resources, digital resources. And then we do information sessions with them. And then we now track, hey, now you've, I've now recruited my organizing committee. These are the roles. I'm now reaching out to experts and coaches. We then give them email templates of what to say or how to, we even take them through a crash course. If you've met with a CEO, for example, what to say, what not to say, for example. So we, we build leaders through that program. And then we also believe that we build entrepreneurs. So it's up to them how they want the event to look like. So that's where we now bring in the awards. How unique you make your event to be, how it's not up to you. We give you all the marketing materials, digitally, everything. So campus directors, most of the time from what we have seen, they engage stakeholders like partners, for example, from different organizations. They ask them to come as mentors and also partners to sponsor maybe awards for the winning team. So not all universities have awards for the winning team. Some universities, the winning team receives tickets to go to the regionals. Some universities, just the certificates. So it, it depends. It depends. Okay. And how, how is it now that, you know, our universities, like maybe the University of Nairobi has different campuses. So how do they bring all that together? And as a team, you know, taking them to the regional representing Nairobi University. Yeah. So that number one, there are two ways of doing that. Just have one campus director who will have organizing committees from all satellite campuses or recruit campus directors from all satellite committees. So once we recruit the campus director from the main campus, we ask them, Hey, what do you think will work for you? What will make your work easier? Do you have the capacity, for example, to have organizing committees from all these campuses? John here was able to do it together with a team. He got a very big, strong team to run all satellite campuses. And during this time, he had 500 startups registered for his own campus program. So you see, it's still part of that. Okay. You have introduced John to the, you know, you have not, you didn't say who John is. John is, you know, behind the scenes and he has accompanied Cliff. So who's John in the, in the team now? John is our business development associate. One of the incentives of outstanding campus director. He was a former campus director of the UN and he was a former top 20 global campus director. So one of the incentives is we give, we provide you internships. We give you a job. For example, now John has a job with us and pay your flight tickets to accelerator, VIP access to the UN during global finals. So these are just some of the incentives that we have for campus directors. Okay. It's good to be a campus director here. So now I'm still on the on-campus, you know, addition at the student, because many students participate in this. So what happens to those that don't qualify to go to the next level? Are they still mentored or does their dream just, you know, end there? Thank you for raising that question. Basically what we do at every level of the competition, we have a pool of experts and coaches to engage with all the startups. As helpers, we can only do one thing, provide you with a platform. What you do with the platform is up to you. We train you. We impact you with the skills that we think are necessary for your growth as an organization and as a company. Now what you do with that knowledge is up to you. Okay. So now tell us about this oncoming event that is there to award the campus directors. Every year we have a global on-campus awards festival. Basically it's an initiative by the health prize to celebrate the most outstanding universities in our program. Some of the things we do is award initiative of the year, brand excellence, youth empowerment, community engagement. So these are categories of awards. And then we have the best program in every region, for example, Africa, Asia. And then we also have the best global on-campus program. The event will be from the 1st to the 3rd of July this year. We'll have it at Stratmo KCB Leadership Center and the Maraoles Sereni. So we have three venues for the event and what we want to ensure and make sure is to have our global audience who will be participating in person to have a feel of Nairobi, have fun because we'll also be doing safari and also finish the awards festival themselves, recognizing the leaders and the institutions which did a great job. Okay. Amazing. Amazing. So now, still on the different categories, how did you specifically come up with the categories that are there? What is the reason behind them? So when we recruit campus directors, we do trainings for them on how to be brand aligned with our brand. We give them marketing materials, for example. We encourage them also as well to do initiatives, community initiatives, because we are a social enterprise company. So we want to lead by example and then we want them to take up the mantle, for example. So that's why we create that award, for example. Like one university in Nigeria, an accident happened close to the university. The organizing committee decided to do a blood donation drive. That's a nice initiative, you see. And then we also have community engagement. We want to see how many startups are you able to recruit, what kind of an audience are you able to attract and everything you attach and evidence. We give all of them websites. For example, we also see the number of clicks that were attached to their website. So every campus director is given a website to put their photos, their partners and everything. So we look at every small thing and then we also have something called the X Factor. What did you do that's very outstanding that no one else did? Amazing. Sounds very interesting. So is it for all campus, for the campus directors in all registered campuses in Kenya, for example? Yeah. Actually what we do is we go one by one awarding, giving points to every institution, the 2,000 institutions globally. Or globally, okay. Yes. And then we do deliberations, which are the most outstanding programs. At some point we even invite the campus directors for an interview, you know, because we want to get the best. So we look at all sides of the angle to ensure that we have the right people who can benefit from these incentives. And why do you, why is this festival important to, you know, recognize that they're like, why are these are crucial parts in Halt Prize competition? We do realize that we deal with young people. Young people sometimes could be impatient, but this is just like a tap on the back, like, hey, you're doing great, but you can do better. Keep going. This is not the end. You're already doing amazing. But now there's another step. There's something that you can still do more. You have so many years ahead of you. So this is just a tap on the back to give them the extra oomph and push to proceed pursuing and doing the great things they're already doing for their communities. Speaking of progress now, back to you and how you started as a campus director. So how was the journey to where you are now as the Africa, Africa's regional manager? So actually I was first a participant in my university, African Nazarene University. At that time, it was the first time Halt Prize actually was in Kenya. It was in Nazarene and Kabarak University. So I participated. My team was first runners up. At that time, the first and second team were allowed to participate in regional competitions. So my team was invited to the Cairo regionals. And then the following year, I applied to be a campus director. I was able to run the program within the institution. I was able to attract some funding, for example. One of two of my judges actually sponsored their flights from the US to come and look at the, you know, and award the startups that were pitching from my university at that time. I had about 80 startups pitching. And because I also had a great team of organizing committee, our program was recognized as among the top 20 globally that year. So one of the incentives was internship. So I attended the Accelerator at the Ashley Castle that year. Flight fully paid for everything. Went and interned, came back, was a volunteer as a community builder, and then a regional analyst. Now I was hired as a regional analyst, then director for East Africa, and now regional manager. Now, it must feel nice to see the growth and the steps and... ...stake time and working smart and having an amazing team. Okay. So what would you say to, you know, that campus director who's looking up to you and, you know, wants to get where you are or maybe passed where you are? Focus on the goal. Don't look at anything that might deter you. Anything that might deter you or that might be a challenge is going to make you stronger and better for the next level. In fact, be excited when challenges come upon you because they fashion you to become a better leader. They fashion you to be able to solve more challenges than someone who just had that smooth rider. And what vision do you have as the regional manager for Health Prize? Yeah. So for Africa, I want to engage together with my team, the African Union and the Africa Development Bank to award over million dollars to African startups. And this is why, because I have noticed, especially once we get to the accelerator level of our competitions, startups from African universities usually get to that stage while their business ideas are still at the idea stage. But when you look at startups from Asia, Middle East, the Americas, they really got funding. So by the time they get into the accelerator, it's a real business. It's working. They're talking about traction. I have my first 20 customers. I have my first 50 customers. But Africa has a big problem with financing startups and giving capital to startups or loans to startups. And this is because it's a high risk. They do not have assets and all that. But I think we need to change the culture from some of our big companies to believe. First, you have to believe, mentor, engage, and then watch these businesses grow. The United Nations was built on social enterprises and businesses. Innovation builds some of the most outstanding countries that we have right now. It is something that we can do as Africa. Our team, moving forward, with time, we'll be able to work on an initiative to engage the big boys in courts in Africa who can bring impact. Like, for example, if the African Union endorses your program and endorses it and asks presidents within the other countries to align in a certain way, we'll be able to have achieved a bigger impact. So this is that kind of angle that we are looking at in approaching that issue. Amazing. And we hope that comes to be. And in entirety, how do you see health prize changing our system in Kenya, Africa, and the world? So I'll just begin by giving you some raw numbers. Every year we have about 69 campus directors just from Kenya alone and in Africa about 800. And every year we have about 10,000 young people in Kenya alone engaging, pitching. So we are kind of like crowdsourcing ideas to solve one single problem. So if we continue and keep up with this culture, because health prize in Africa is now six years old, if we continue engaging young people, I think we'll be given by a shift of mindset and changing our culture that, hey, I do not have to finish campus and wait for employment. I can be in campus and come up with an initiative that supports and impacts the community, whereas creating job opportunities for other people and making money as well. Okay. Amazing. So now as we come to a close, tell us about the event again. Take us to the mental journey, because we can't see it. Thank you so much. So the event is called the Global Campus Awards, which begins from the first of July to the third of July. On the first of July is just the launch everyone will be receiving an amazing red carpet, everyone dressed up looking nice. We have participation from over 50 countries, over 150 guests confirmed, including campus directors, and we have over 800 participants online for that. Day two very early in the morning, we do safari. We take everyone to the Nairobi National Park to experience Kenya. Nairobi is the only city in the world with the national park. So we want to leverage on that as well. And then on the evening of the second of July, we'll do something called the Global Village. Each of these 50 cultures will be doing a presentation and showcasing their culture through cloth fashion, you know, cuisines and all that. So we are also looking forward to see what the participants have in store for us. And then day three, now that's the awards festival day. This is when we get to now give their words to the nominees. Oh, amazing. Thank you very much for coming on board. It's been a pleasure. Yeah. If someone wants to get you where can they reach out? You can write to me on email, clefton.nyakundi at heartprice.org. I'm also on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter as clefton.nyakundi. Thank you. And again, that has been clefton.nyakundi. Yes, who's the Africa Regional Manager, Heart Prize Foundation, talking about Heart Prize, which is a youth initiated, you know, youth initiated innovations for social entrepreneurship. So yeah, I hope you've taken something from that. You've been inspired by it. And if you in campus, maybe you should apply for the next one before that. When is the next competition? When can people register? Right now we in the process of recruiting the next batch of campus directors, it began on the 1st of June. So if you want to apply to be a campus director to bring Heart Prize into your college or university, head up to our website at heartprice.org and sign up. Okay, so you have had it from cleft. If you are interested, then sign up at Heart Prize website and you will get all the details for it. For now, let's take a short break. We'll be back with Valentine for Music and Lifestyle, the hashtag to use is the