Dubai youth hub incubates passion into innovation

A lot of people aspire to work for Google, even if only to be surrounded everyday by the vibrant and eclectic interiors that their offices boast. Imagine using slides to go downstairs instead of using stairs. Imagine moveable walls made of whiteboards so you can write all over the floors and ceilings.

A Dubai-based youth organisation called GYEM is planning to set up a youth incubation hub — similar to the style of the famous Google offices.

The space, set to open in January 2014, will be called ‘The GYEM HQ’ — designed in a modern way, yet still infused with local culture.

The hub’s location is currently undisclosed, however, GYEM had a few other surprises, one of which was the launch of its ‘Indiegogo’ platform on October 5.

‘Indiegogo’ is a US-based crowdfunding platform dedicated to collecting donations to fund what matters to people. Aiming to raise $25,000 (Dh91,832), all proceeds will go towards the outfitting of the event room at the GYEM HQ.

“We focus on sponsorship. We are not going for the money, we go for our ideas and we believe that the potential and the passion that we have is much more essential than the money,” said Egyptian Suzan Shedid, operations manager at GYEM.

GYEM was originally founded in 2010 and has worked with more than 1,000 youngsters, 25 schools and 20 different corporations such as PepsiCo and Al Futtaim.

GYEM used to stand for ‘Global Youth Empowering Movement’ — however, this is no longer the case. GYEM is now simply known as just GYEM.

The CEO and co-founder of GYEM, Korean-American Seaon Shin, is currently taking a break from her social impact and finance major at Wharton School of Business in the US. The 22-year-old’s main priority right now is her brainchild, GYEM.

“It all began when I had my own identity crisis and I found myself [having] a sense of hope by serving others,” said Shin.

“I believe that innovation comes from a sense of purpose. If we youth don’t have a purpose, we cannot innovate. What we are trying to do is help youth discover a sense of purpose and passion, and then become innovators for social good. GYEM was born through the idea of bridging youths’ passion with service and social innovation,” she said.

Social innovation is defined as the process of inventing, securing support for, and implementing novel solutions to social needs and problems, according to the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

When speaking to a member of the GYEM team about his journey and how it has changed his life, there was a lot of gratitude in the air.

“When I first joined GYEM, I was this silent kid who used to sit in the corner and sketch with my best friend — my sketchbook. But after I went to the GYEM workshop, I realised that the world isn’t so bad when you smile and get a smile back. It made me realise that everyone in this world has a need to connect and give back to society,” said 18-year-old Hamdan Iqbal, marketing manager at GYEM.

GYEM is in the process of being set up officially as a social enterprise under DED (Department of Economic Development), during the next couple of weeks.

“We are not for profit, we operate as a social enterprise; meaning we reinvest profits back into the company,” said Shin.

Other than school, where can young people go in Dubai to have fun and be productive at the same time? Today’s generation tend to roam around malls and shisha cafes — because they do not have an alternative. What if there was a safe place that combines productivity with enjoyment?

“Right now there is a big discrepancy in the market where youth have a lot of potential, but they don’t graduate with the skill sets that employers want. We want to help youth use their passions and develop them, so whatever you love doing from art; design; business; or science — we want to help channel that into social good or a social enterprise,” said Shin.

This space for youth will include a membership structure allowing members to get to know and grow with their community — aiming to attract at least 300 members during the first year. Activities such as the infamous ‘GYEM open mic nite’, networking events, business plan competitions and workshops, will be a regular occurrence at the GYEM space.

“Corporates get access to high-potential employees and make use of the human capital that is already available in the UAE instead of looking outside. There is a lot of potential in the youth of this country and it will be amazing if we offer them places to be able to actually develop themselves,” said Suzan.

GYEM has been an active member of the community since day one. It was recently invited to set up a mini-house at the event ‘Sikka’ in the Bastakiya area — organised by Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture.)

GYEM supporters vary from educational institutes to art and design institutes. To name a few: the art and design hub Tashkeel; the school board Esol; Dubai beauty school, Annex Institute; and shawarma fast-food chain Wild Peeta.

One significant GYEM supporter who has been there since the beginning is the UAE government-sponsored Zayed University — where the first GYEM workshop was held.

Another big name interested in working with the youth organisation is PepsiCo, recently asking GYEM if they would be willing to run a conference with them.

“If you try to do something good, and someone else is trying to do something good, why bother competing? We want to become a community powerhouse. We want to be the one space where every single other youth venture in Dubai can come to us. There are other youth organisations in Dubai like The Sameness Project and 181 Youth Magazine — all of these organisations have their own audiences and are geared to youth empowerment and doing social good. We want to offer them a space in our centre,” said Johnwalf Brigoli, relations and media manager at GYEM.

The question is — what makes GYEM unique? According to Shin, nobody else caters to the youth market like GYEM does — especially the 14-25 year-old segment.

“There are 350,000 people in Dubai between the ages of 14-25 — if you could tap into just one per cent of that, that’s 35,000 people coming to our centre,” said Shin.

“Expo 2020 is coming up and it promotes sustainability, new avenues for entrepreneurship and innovation — that is what we are trying to do. There are people contacting us from Zambia, Lebanon, the US, and India who want to partner up for different programmes. This will enable our youth to see the outside world and other youth to see us,” she said.

Over time, GYEM has grown and developed significantly as social awareness becomes more apparent.

So, what is the secret to innovation? According to Shin, “passion sparks purpose and purpose drives innovation.”