General News
24 June, 2024
Crazy ideas exposed
Crazy Ideas College (CIC) in partnership with Ballarat Tech School brought Horsham College and Murtoa College Year 9 students together for a Social Innovators program at Horsham Golf Club earlier this month.
The two-day process saw students invent programs, products and services that their community might benefit from.
Enhancing health and wellbeing, care for the environment, reimagining learning and fostering community connectedness were among the themes students followed for inspiration.
CIC facilitator Jenny Turnham said the program was about getting young people to come up with "crazy ideas".
"Get them to think of a crazy big issue and how to solve it, but make it smaller for it to actually happen," she said.
The students were exposed to public speaking where they pitched their ideas in front of community partners from various industries.
Andrea Cross from Jobs and Skills Centre, Martene Blay from Uniting Vic Tas, Stephanie Turton from GWMWater, David Crooks from Wimmera Southern Mallee LLEN and Andrew Sosthiem from the CHA Group in Commercial Operations gave constructive feedback and even made a few connections with ideas that had the most potential.
Among the subjects tackled were homelessness, environmental issues and sporting complexes.
One group created a Virtual Career Simulator where school students could trial careers wearing a virtual reality headset.
"This is an amazing opportunity to present their ideas in front of community partners," Ms Turnham said.
"It's about how can we help young people become crazy good and how we can help them do better."