By Chandrasnata Mohanty
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How does it feel ? When something you’ve waited upon, finally comes back? When all your hopes seem to climb as high as the Burj Khalifa, and your adrenaline rushes through you like the Peregrine Falcon. When the threads you once picked up to bind together, weave into a fine cloth.
Meet the person, with such anticipation and enthusiasm, Hugh McDowell, because we at MUN Impact are back with our most awaited event, The Global Summit 2.0.
Yes, you’ve read it right. After all the love, high spirits and enthusiastic energy of our passionate participants that we perceived months ago, it was just too hard to resist, we at MUN Impact are back with yet another round of our July event, Global Summit 2.0. This Summit is a 3-day free event allowing you to participate in workshops, interact with like minds and pitch in your ideas, solving real-life problems, without any kind of prejudice leading the way.
Hugh McDowell, the Co-Secretary General for the MUN IMPACT GLOBAL SUMMIT 2.0, also serves as a Diplomat for the Europe region and a Mentor at MUN@Home. It was an absolute delight interviewing the gentleman, as well as hearing his answers and the ecstasy they contained.
The Summit comes with the purpose ‘Action for the Impact’ which also stands as the motto for this summit compared to ‘ Hope for the future ‘ for the previous. When asked about the target audience for the Summit, Hugh explains how today’s youth, the young minds are the ones who are going to play a key role in the future and ultimate decision makers as we move towards 2030 with such speed. “Anyone with access to the internet, and perhaps a laptop or any device, can take part in the workshops and events irrespective of their age.”
The Summit brings in all the tools with it, to harness the power and ideas of these young minds. Hugh also gives us a sneak-peek on the very tools, The SDG Sandbox Strands and the Dolphin Pool, which will be something to get the audience on hook.
The SDG Sandbox is all about project planning and developing. It helps you gain confidence, interact with participants across the globe and most importantly help you find different perspectives on one issue. These will be 2-hour-sessions where our keynote speakers, global shapers and student leaders will guide you through the process of developing an idea into a project, something you can always preserve with you.
The Dolphin Pool on the other hand is the version of ‘ Shark Tank ‘ we came up with. Any guesses why? Well, it’s quite simple. As the name suggests, Dolphins are known for their friendly and collaborative nature. So here we are with our humble version ‘ Dolphin Pool ‘. This event focuses on collaboration, communication and most importantly teamwork. So as you’ve understood the purpose and meaning behind this event, what are you waiting for? I suggest you go sign up for it now!
We asked Hugh about what his favourite parts of the Summit are going to be and he came up with the obvious answer and without a second thought, “The Social Hours”. Well Social Hours are something that we all look forward to. This is the time when you can have an informal conversation with people around the world and enjoy playing games and some cool ice-breakers thrown in your way. During the last Summit, the social hours were a huge success. People from all around the world, with so many differences yet so many similarities, found like-minded acquaintances who left as friends, promising to meet next Summit. There’s also a talent show on the 3rd day during the social hour and being the man behind the “idea of the talent show”, Hugh tells us how the social hour participants came up to showcase their talents like singing, poetry etc, and that’s when he was wondering about the talented audience, he came up with idea of a talent show. However, he humbly credits his colleagues, Arsema Aklog, Leila Diab and all the community building team for the event’s success.
He also talks about the keynote speakers and presenters who have worked hard to bring blissful results out of the Summit. There are adults as well as students, the experienced in the field as well as the ones with hunger to learn.
When asked, “Where do you see MUN Impact in the next 5 years?”, Hugh replies with the utmost simplicity,
“In the next 5 years, that would be 2025; which would be 5 years from 2030 and 5 years to achieve the goals; I see MUN Impact progressing and it’s word and cause spreading and though it’s hard to tell, I mean, from the “work in progress” mode we are going to be in “ready to make an Impact” mode.”
“Many will start fast, few will Finish Strong.”
And after this little interview, I certainly agree that whoever said this, has totally got it right!