Hello Future, DSIL Global Kick Off Design-Thinking Hack-a-Thon for Refugee Teens and International Youth

New York, June 21, 2020 – International organizations Hello Future and DSIL Global have teamed up to present a seven-day design-thinking hack-a-thon for refugee teens and youth around the world. The goal of the event, which begins MONDAY, is to activate youth to create solutions to the problems they face due the COVID-19 pandemic.

Working in teams of five, students will identify some of the new sets of challenges they may not have faced before -- including isolation, lack of socialization with friends, missing school -- and develop solutions to them.

“We learn from each other all the time,” said Hello Future Executive Director, Charlie Grosso. “We learn about our differences and similarities through a continuous exchange of ideas, an infinity loop of information. Our expansion as humans, as creatives and as future leaders depends on the diversity and quality of our inputs. Through this hack-a-thon, my hope is that we will expand the world of ideas and connections for our Syrian teens and for youth around the globe.”

Design-thinking, also known as human-centered design, is a creative approach to problem solving and the backbone for international innovation companies and technology giants, like Google and Facebook. It is core to organizations working in social innovation. Hello Future teaches design-thinking as part of its curriculum delivered to Syrian refugee teens in the camps of Northern Iraq.

Hello Future provides refugee teens in the Middle East with the tools and skills required to improve their educational and employment futures. Through an intensive program taught by local instructors in the students’ native language, refugee youth learn essential digital skills; psychosocial support; entrepreneurship; critical thinking; and learning to learn skills.

To date, Hello Future’s impact includes a 100% program retention rate and an average 91.5% graduation rate. Post-session student surveys show a 47% increase in positive beliefs about the future, with 97% of students saying that what they learned in Hello Future’s program will be helpful in getting a better job.

Founded in 2016, Hello Future is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization working with Syrian refugees in the Middle East. It provides in-person courses led by local instructors that teach adolescent refugee youth the essential digital, business, and creative skills needed to create the next generation of entrepreneurs and community leaders. Learn more at www.hellofuture.io.

DSIL Global is a global innovation company training the next generation of social innovators and leaders working towards systems change.