Day 1 of IEARN TECH CAMP

Gropie

           
 All the alumni are here and everyone is looking forward to a experience brought by the first day of Tech Innovation Camp. It started with breakfast stories of time at the airport (Islamabad Alumni) and a mingling evening (Karachi Alumni).

iEARN Executive Director Mam Farah Kamal 

             



        A lovely welcome session was given by IEARN executive Director Mam Farah Kamal followed by a guideline session by our cute mentor Kristie.




         




         Faisal Khan, a man who quit his job at 40, started his career in what he loved, an inspiration, a professional adviser and a very effectuating person on Quora, was the Guest speaker.                  

Faisal Khan 

"Don't let the negativity get you. Do what you love to do. Don't be afraid of failure. The problem is that you think you have time but in actual you don't. So, life is now, live it fully' says Faisal Khan.
         
               Our Senior alumna Sarah Zubair lead an ice breaking activity afterwards, which helped everyone freshen up.
           
               Then came the time to learn one of the major topics, mentioned in our pre-survey. A two hour session on Human Based Design Thinking (HBDT) was lead by cool Trainers Awais, Jazib and one and only Charity. It was quite astonishing that within two hours and in simple 5 step process, all Alumni came up with such innovative and creative ideas.
             

  Afterwards, Kristine taught us ABCD, nope not the basic ones, hey we are talking about YES tech camp here, everything here is techy. Okay so ABCD stands for Asset Based Community Development. Before this session we never realized how many valuable assets are already present in our community which can lead to sustainable solutions. An asset map helped us  stay focused while working for solutions.
               

             
           
              

YES Alumni Tech Innovation Camp

    So we are here, an awesome Tech camp about to start. YES Alumni from all over Pakistan gathered for an innovative Tech Camp. Alumni from Karachi, Gawadar, Lahore and Dhera Ghazi Khan are here, Islamabadis about to arrive. Alumni with their  laptops, cellphones, ipad and introduction part is at peak, use your imagination.

An amazing workshop that has been designed to empower the alumni to create and implement their own solutions to pressing problems in their communities.

Alumni are expecting to learn and explore new technologies for developing innovative, creative and local solutions to problems in their local communities. So far a number of Alumni have already arrived and are busy with socializing and reporting through blogging and video making.

Our very own Christine (YES Alumni Coordinator from US), and the trainers for the week Charity from Kenya and Jahanzaib and Awais from Lahore are also here with the alumni!

Excited YESers on arrival

      "The common thing is that we all are excited. I hope to learn more about those big terms we read in the pre-camp survey. When I read those terms I was like I don't know much about them. So, hopes are high to have fun and learn to innovate". (Sualeha,YES 10)

Sualeha sharing her views with Mariyam

       "I believe that this camp will be a good chance for me to improve my tech skills to initiate new projects and to become more action oriented." (Uswa YES 10)

"Intending to learn doing innovative projects with the use of local resources" (Mariyam, YES 9)

"It's going to be more innovative, productive and motivational in order to make it more action oriented." (Manish YES 9)

The expectations of our awesome trainers Awais and Charity from the participants of Tech Camp are:

 " Be creative, be able to identify problems and seek innovative solutions, stay motivated and awesome."