Hundreds of young Australians converged for our inaugural Ocean Youth Summit, last week, to champion the cause of ocean conservation. The first of its kind in Australia, the event brought together an array of speakers and emerging leaders to discuss innovation, sustainability, and ocean conservation.
With a focus on engaging youth advocates, the Ocean Youth Summit served as an inspirational platform for collaboration, co-creation and action towards a healthier ocean.
We were in awe of the energy, engagement and enthusiasm that all these young people have for exploring ideas to some of the world’s most pressing challenges and the Summit showed the importance of creating a space that builds young people’s capacity to make informed choices while amplifying their voice and actions.
The Summit featured an impressive line-up of speakers and advocates including Laura Wells, Lottie Dalziel (2023 NSW Young Australian of the Year and Founder of Banish), ocean advocate Kal Glanznig, Indiana Rhind of Farmwall, Ruby Wake from OzHarvest, Brett Morgan from Market Forces, Amy Low from Piping Hot and Jordan Dwyer from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment, and Water.
Over two days, participants aged 12-24 engaged in discussions, interactive activities and design challenges aimed at empowering them to become agents of change for the environment.
The impact of the Summit is expected to be far-reaching. Empowering our next generation of innovators and leaders, it has shown the creativity and enthusiasm young people bring to this space and the importance of elevating ocean and innovation literacy in education.