Youths from six nations share inspirations for Lancang-Mekong Region
The 2023 Youth Innovation Competition on Lancang-Mekong Region's Governance and Development concluded on Sunday.
From worm powder and sugarcane-made paper to an agricultural insurance platform that uses blockchain technology to aid local farmers, 20 teams of university students from China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia showcased their creativity at the Youth Innovation Competition on Lancang-Mekong Region's Governance and Development.
The competition concluded on Sunday in northwest China's Qinghai Province, the origin of the Mekong River, known as the Lancang River in China.
First launched by students from Fudan University in 2016 to encourage youth innovation and entrepreneurship in the six Lancang-Mekong countries as well as subregional cooperation and cultural exchanges, the annual event has attracted more than 1,600 participants.
This summer, after three years of pandemic and two online editions, the youth competition was back in Qinghai, where the first competition was held.
Themed on "New Agriculture and Sustainable Development," this year's competition focused on food security and environmental issues, which echoed with the ASEAN-China Year of Agricultural Development and Food Security Cooperation held in Beijing this April.
The 20 teams that entered the final round were regrouped into international teams with members from different countries and brainstormed on one of the 20 original proposals to offer new solutions and strategies.
An international team receives advice from a judge.
After the final presentations, four awards – "The Most Valuable Question," "The Most Creative Team," "The Best Project for Incubation" and "The Best International Team" – were conferred on eight teams from China, Vietnam, Thailand and Laos.
A Vietnamese team's project "Producing Organic Clean Worm Powder" was honored as "The Best Project for Incubation."
The Best Project for Incubation
"When I was young, there was a small worm farm besides my house, and I realized that this project can bring a lot of benefits such as reducing organic waste, improving soil quality, and using worms as animal feed," said Dang Nguyet Anh, a member of the team.
Aimed at producing green and economical animal feed, the team came up with the idea of raising worms in dumped organic wastes to manufacture high-quality protein for farming animals.
"We noticed that many farmers are still using traditional feed, made up of bran and other industrial ingredients, which are unhealthy and not nutritious," Anh explained.
"Using worm powder as a substitute brings about a healthier diet for the poultry and livestock and can solve the waste problem in our country as well.
"We hope that one day, farmers in Vietnam no longer need to worry about animal feed and infertile land, and every Vietnamese family can enjoy healthy and high-quality meat products," he said while demonstrating their project.
Dang Nguyet Anh presents the project of his team to the judges.
Common voices, different perspectives
Besides the innovation projects, the young talents also expressed their common voices.
During the competition, students formed into international teams to draft the Lancang-Mekong Youth Golden Initiative, which was handed to the expert committee for revision before being read out at the closing ceremony.
In the initiative, they called on their peers to address concrete issues in the Lancang-Mekong region by incubating potential approaches.
"I think this is a very meaningful agenda set by the committee," said Yu Jiarong, a student from Fudan University, who read the initiative. "It not only pointed out the core problems in Langcang-Mekong Regional Governance, but also encouraged young people to propose their own ideas and innovations."
Yu is currently a sophomore majoring in international politics. He said he was very interested in relationships between China and southeast Asian countries and wanted to accumulate relevant experience in regional governance.
Chinese student Yu Jiarong and representatives from the five other countries read out the Lancang-Mekong Youth Golden Initiative.
As a member of the "Best International Team," Yu said that he learned a lot from his two teammates from Vietnam and Cambodia, who majored in global economy and chemical engineering, respectively.
"While drafting the content of the initiative, I received many different perspectives from them, which gave me a new understanding on local agricultural development in southeast Asian countries.
"We also shared a lot about our dreams and future career. I was amazed that despite our huge differences, we had lots of commonalities as well."
Youth in global governance
"To me, YICMG was an unforgettable time in my career; I still remember the day I saw the source of the Mekong River, which changed my life and way of thinking," said Vansy Phengthajaim, a former participant from Laos, in his video speech at the opening ceremony.
Phengthajaim joined the competition in 2017 and won "The Most Creative Team" award. He has been in close contact with the competition organizers over the years and has dedicated himself to environmental protection in Laos.
Video screenshot of Vansy Phengthajaim delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the competition.
"I was deciding my career path after completing the final year of my undergraduate degree in forestry. When I went to China to attend the YICMG, I never expected it would guide me towards development work in my own country," he recalled.
Now, he is working with an international organization examining forest carbon issues through initiatives such as reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries.
"I believe this competition expresses a very clear message. We are all motivated to find potential solutions to help our neighbors and people that we don't even know. By concentrating these efforts and wisdom, we can truly bring substantial changes to the lands we love," Phengthajaim added.
