PA2020 | A Decade of Action: A reflection by Caroline
This article was written by Caroline, a Project Access team member, studying Business Management at King's College London
Another year has passed for Project Access and on the 29th February Project Access (PA) hosted its second annual conference, this year with a focus on the decade to come and the challenges and possibilities that come with it.
PA2020|A Decade of Action gathered about 200 of the brightest, most ambitious, student leaders from London and Oxbridge universities that all make a positive social impact in societies or student-start-ups.
Emil Bender Lassen, CEO of Project Access International, opened PA2020 with a welcoming address to the challenges the next decade will bring and SDG’s as well as a ‘behind the curtain’ look at what PA does and why we believe inequality in access to higher education is a cause worth fighting for.
During the day we were very fortunate to be joined by various professionals, entrepreneurs, and politicians on two panels to discuss the new decade in Tech and Ethics and Political Trends. But first, we had the pleasure of listening to the very inspiring Jeremy Oppenheim, delivering our opening keynote. Jeremy addressed sustainability and how sustainability will be looked at and tackled in the next decade.
Our first panel on Tech and Ethics of the New Decade, consisting of Marjorie Buchser, Executive Director of the Digital Society Initiative at Chatham House, Sam Baker, Partner – Digital & Corporate Purpose at Monitor Deloitte, Michael Jelly, Co-founder of Ethi and Nikolai Rozanov, Co-founder and CTO of Wluper and Forbes 30 under 30. The panel discussed the issue of transparency in technology going forward as well as the incorporation of tech in our everyday lives. The discussion gave our participants a glimpse of what happens with our data behind the firewalls and what to be aware of when it comes to technological advancements.
After a networking session that ended with a question round/campfire like situation around our opening keynote Jeremy Oppenheim, PA2020 resumed with our second panel, Political Trends of the New Decade. Our second panel consisted of Dauii Abouchere, geopolitical analyst & advisor at Independent, Resham Kotecha, candidate for Parliament for Conservatives, William Rohde from European Horizons, and Andrea Venzon, Co-founder of NOW! The panel discussed various themes in politics such as how politics will be affected by climate change in the next decade, the effects of social media and polarization.
As we aimed to close on a high note we three Changemakers explain how they are already impacting the decade to come. Mahek Vara, founder of CodeCamp. CodeCamp is an online learning platform that aims to teach young children how to code for free. Mahek emphasised how learning to code, in the next decade, will be as essential as learning how to read and calculate. So far they have reached over 78.000 young people in over 1.800 schools within India. So Mahek and CodeCamp already has an incredible impact on the children they teach.
The second changemaker Rasheed Wihaib, Head of Product at Scoodle. Scoodle are changing the education system and the way we learn. Scoodle gives every child access to the best educators in their respective fields. A very inspiring concept that gives food for thought about our education system.
PA2020’s final changemaker was well, all of us! Every single one of us are already making a change and will advance to impact the decade to come. In this way we ended PA2020 |A Decade of Action by urging all of us to head out into the world and do our best to solve the problems that will undoubtedly present themselves in the next decade.
On behalf of Project Access, I would like to thank everyone involved – our speakers, panellists, changemakers, student leaders across the UK, and Project Access members who supported our second annual conference. We hope that PA2020 has be an inspiration and insight to the decade to come and that everyone who attended will use that insight to make the next decade, a decade of impact.