Sessions

As you may recall at the beginning of the day, I mentioned a concept that we're introducing today called the Collaborative Ideation session, a bit of a tongue teaser. In this session, we're going to challenge you. We're going to try and find solutions to all the problems and the setbacks that we've been discussing today as a group to probably do justice to this a little bit more.

I’d like to call Karan Anand, Co-founder of YSPN Director at Deloitte Consulting, who is going to share more information about how this session is going to work what the purpose of this session is and why we've curated it specifically for Elevate 2020. let's bring him up with a round of applause

Karan Anand

Thank you Malika and thank you to that wonderful panel and the panel before can they’ve given me a stage so I never do as I'm told, and they've given me 15 minutes so if you allow me to indulge a little bit on a history lesson of YSPN because as Malika said I'm one of the Co-founders. But we've had four YSPN team members up speaking today. We've had Malika and Jaibeer whom you heard from and we had Preet and Preety as well. So, you got Preet and Preety who were there almost from day one, like Preet talked about that multicultural hub story Preety was one of the founding members in his leadership of our Brisbane team and you've had Jabir and Malika who have collectively been in YSPN about a year perhaps between the two of you.

But one of the things that excite me about this organization and I promise it connects to what we're going to do right now, it’s every year we get the management team together for a national summit and this year we had it in September and my remarks at the summit was I said you're an irrational bunch. And you're an irrational bunch because you come here from five different cities around Australia and New Zealand, you take time out of your weekend, you pay for your way, your flights, your accommodation. YSPN doesn't have any money that's why we're doing this crowdfunding campaign to come for a weekend to work and they work on your behalf. And the manifestation of that work results in today and the reason I raised that timeline point was that Preet and Preety are there, being two of the most vocal people in that session, as Malika and Jabir right from the start through to now and the energy in that room.

As you could probably sense in the energy in this room is palpable like it's moving and it's quite motivating and I won't give away any of the content of that session because Ramneek going to talk about it at length at the dinner tonight. But this year's Summit, the 2019 Summit rather was about setting the new strategy in a new direction for YSPN and when, and I'm a strategy professional, so I do this daily for my clients. So, when you set strategy for organizations and companies, what you try to do is you try to provoke different alternatives or futures of what your organization or what your company could be like. and there are clear alternatives for YSPN given you know five, six years of, seven years now real success around an organization which has built a professional network which encompasses Australia, New Zealand. And we've got good at running professional networking events.

We get keynote speakers who talk about their career stories, we get accountants, lawyers, bankers, consultants, broader industries come together Young Sikhs Network, and one of the challenges we said to ourselves as well we could just keep doing that. We're good at this, this is our trade let's do that excellently and there was a small group in the organization particularly some of the old-timers who said that's what we do let's do that. But the growing sentiment and the sentiment you'll hear about tonight and the reason we're doing this was the intent of the organization is I want to connect Sewa to my life and every Sikh should do Sewa and in fact, I want to challenge some of the concepts we heard; I don't think we do enough, I think we talk about how much we do. I think we're proud of the history of our organization.

I think we're proud of the stories of our organization but I want to challenge the fact that our society still has massive issues with gender equality. We still have massive issues with infanticide on the job and drug problems, we still have massive issues on climate change we have massive issues on other progressive things like LGBT rights and stuff and a Sikh voice is nowhere to be found so sever is about action Sewa is about grassroots movement but it is also about the intent and the advocacy that you put forward as an organization and the challenge we set ourselves and was that we need to straddle both those roads. It is the intent, it's the statements the words Guru Nanak was excellent at words and actions, he did both well and we need to do both well yet in all these significant issues the Sikh voice is left out and we want to change that and we can't do it by ourselves we can't do it as 20, 30, 40 people.

We need to mobilize hundreds, we need to mobilize thousands, we need to mobilize the 125 000 that Malika talked about in Australia and the 25 to 30 000 that is in New Zealand. And the way that starts is and this is the beauty of that [inaudible 05:44] that collected at the summit we said let's do it as a collective, let's include everyone because one of the tenets of our communities we are inclusive; and so rather than us sitting there in a room and coming up with ideas we said let's make Elevate about everyone's ideas let's get everyone's ideas on the table and then at the end of the day, we're going to ask you to commit yourself hold yourself accountable for the Sewa you want to enact in the community. And we will do as much as we can to support you to fulfill that individual obligation. And we know that the more individual actions the more individual intent each one of us takes will accumulate to just this amazing community movement so that's what came out of the summit and it manifests itself in the thing that we're going to do now.

So, this poorly worked, and I apologize for collaborative ideation I think I came up without it, coming out of --I'm in the business of corporate gobbledygook so that is that. So, let's call it an idea jam. Perhaps that's a nice cool, am I cool and does that make me hip, right? Well moving right along so, this collaborative ideation session or this idea jam is literally about engaging everyone. Every one of you has a stake, every one of you has a voice. We're going to put you so you can't have sleepy afternoon panel time right, you're going to be working for the rest of the afternoon and you've got station captains who are going to keep you accountable for your inputs. And then we're going to have sheets at the end where you're going to write down what you're going to commit to, being it your energy, your time, your financial contribution, whatever it is so that the ideas we come up with are enacted in society and we are living those values of Guru Nanak day in day out that this panel discussed eloquently.

So the way this is going to work and bear with me for two minutes on this because it's a little bit we've had to make it a little bit complicated to cater for the fact that we have 100 people in the room, so what we're going to ask you to do before I finish this session and we break for lunch is I'm going to ask you to think about the two topics that we've discussed in these two panels, One about migration and one about Sewa. And think about which one do you want to spend the next hour and a half coming up with ideas for. And what we want to try and get is a rough as close as we can a 50/50 balance but we'll work that out based on a show of hands at lunchtime. When you've decided, so say you know Preet, I’m going to use you as my guinea pig. Preet decides that he wants to be in the, put your hand up so everyone knows. Preet decides he wants to be in the Migration group.

When we come back from lunch the room will be reset. And the room will be reset, you see the flip charts at the back there's going to be four Migration groups on this site and there's going to be four Sewa groups on this side right. So, you'll be either in Migration or either in Sewa for the whole afternoon. And what you're going to be doing is you're going to be rotating from one group to the next iterating ideas. So, you're going to start by talking about what are all the ways that we can and should be doing Sewa, all the ideas right we should be getting better involved in distributing food in crises. We should be writing policy papers to improve gender equality; we should be providing support for vulnerable women and children who have had fallouts from domestic violence.

All the ideas which are possible that the Sikh community should be doing for Sewa I want to get those all out in your first rotation, then you're going to move to the second one right so Preet has this great idea he listens to everyone else's idea in his group of eight people they move to the second rotation where they pick up the previous groups ideas from that group and the station captain who stays there describes that group's ideas and your job is to then flesh out those ideas; oh that's a really interesting one, I didn't think about that or would that mean this such that across the four groups what we're doing is we're fleshing out the ideas and then we're narrowing down on the one or two best one the hardest job in this whole thing is the station captain.

So, eight YSPN team members have been tagged and they've been trained and drilled for the last few weeks on how to be effective station captains. And what they're going to do at the end is they're going to work with you through those rotations to get to the end to find their one idea from their group. So, we'll get four great Sewa ideas, we'll get four great Migration ideas and they're gonna come after afternoon tea and they're gonna pitch them to you-- one second--I'll come to you in a second. They're gonna pitch them to you and then what we're gonna do is we're gonna ask you to either commit your energy or your dollars to one or more, as many of the ideas as you like and they're going to be stuck up on the walls for you to browse and provide that input.

Now there will hopefully be more ideas than I pitched at the end, that's fine this is now your blueprint of Sewa, go and do that in the world but also what we're going to do, what we commit as an organization, as to the top eight that come out, we're going to include those in our roadmap and we're going to invite all of you to help us execute those as an organization over the coming three years. Now I've said a lot part of its probably kind of confusing especially like I'm going from one station to the other how does that work all of your station captains know the detailed instructions all you need to answer for me now before you go and eat lunch for the next hour and a bit is whether you want to be in the Migration group or the Sewa group. So, the Migration group is answering the question that we set out in that panel and the Sewa group is setting and answering the question that we set up in that panel, but then you had a question though. Okay, yes, so that's the Migration group, that's the Sewa group.

So have a look at those two questions for a few seconds and what I'll ask is for a show of hands who wants to go in the Migration rotation can you raise your hand. All right so, okay cool, and who wants to go in the Sewa rotation? All right cool. So YSPN team members please fill the Migration rotation Awesome so, any other questions on this on this breakout? No, it makes sense, yes. I want you to engage your idea brains hopefully your intellectual juices are now flowing. Before we break for lunch, I do want to pay special mention to our MC for today, she has done a fantastic job can we give a round of applause. So, she's been in the organization less than a year. The passion that you can see has just been like incredibly motivating but also she's responsible for this getting us this venue where a lot of us are staying along with Sahib as well where we're staying at the element which is a fantastic venue as well and we rely on the renewal of people like Malika, people like Jaibeer and many others who keep joining the organization year on year and we're very grateful for your service as well.

So, with that, we are now breaking for lunch is that right? I might have to say something about this we're up to 2 900. Gary 15% of your target. So take the time if you feel so inclined please do donate but obviously, you're going to be coming up with your ideas after lunch so your idea is only genuine if you put some money where your mouth is right so think about that food for thought at lunch and thank you we're back in here at 2:30 so please enjoy another hour and a bit for lunch.

[Collaborative ideation session conducted]

Malika Singh Kanwar

A big thank you to all of you here again. Your presence here is paramount and again your contribution throughout the entire day is welcomed from us but also I think I can speak on behalf of everyone in this room as well as the future someday that everything that you are doing working towards our community is going to show its fruition or fruits I suppose in the long run and we can't wait to see all the campaigns that you've put your name down for what they eventuate into.

This is most certainly the beginning of a stronger Sikh generation in Australia who's going to create a more economic and social future so compelling that our upcoming [inaudible 14:37] is proud of us today and everybody sitting in this room. So, with that, a big thank you to you, I think you all deserve a round of applause. So, I'd like to and a bigger thank you again to our sponsors BSA, Aspect finance, AEK, and Montagio alongside SYA for always supporting us throughout the duration of Elevate 2020. I hope you guys were able to pick up the SYA book by Uncle Daya it is a wonderful read. I've stolen it for my dad so I hope you guys do that as well.

And just quickly before we conclude I wanted to just ask a couple of you what was maybe a light bulb moment or something that you've uncovered today that's you're going to take away with you? I think the one thing for me is one thing that Karan mentioned is just a quick liner but I think that's one thing that I’m probably going to resonate with the most and that is Guru Nanak was pivotal in the intent but making it happen as well right so I think we all have great intentions and we all want to do a lot but doing and facilitating is equally or maybe a little bit more important than the intent in itself so that's probably something that I’m going to take away that I think we have, with the right mindset but let's channel our resources into making that happen for our community right so just a quick hand if there's any statement or sentence or something that just buzzed with you guys today let me know what it is and I think it would be important for us to all show any takers? Come on. Yes.

Speaker 1

I think the one thing that struck me was that Sewa and all the discussion about Sewa don't have to be at a grand scale just do something small but just do it.

Malika Singh Kanwar

Yes, amazing. Anybody else? Yes.

Speaker 2

I guess the theme that's come across is almost this idea of like as a Sikh you should be doing Sewa and it's our responsibility I think that's like a powerful thing that's come across today. It's innate in us essentially.

Malika Singh Kanwar

Yes, beautiful, it's in our DNA. Yes, anything else? [inaudible 16:48] I think it was really good to see the body language with everyone I saw everyone interacting people weren't sitting in small circles and pulling each other down so I’d like to thank everyone on behalf of YSPN for really stepping up living the true value of yes and not pulling each other down with butts. Thank you for that, that concludes Elevate 2020’s-day portion and my job as your host today. We're going to reopen for the gala dinner at 6:30 p.m. so there is about an hour I believe up until that time in which you can go continue to network outside, relax, whatever you like, and we will reopen at for all those who still wish to join us for the dinner but haven't, book tickets or anything like that, please feel free to come and talk to Preet and we'll sort you out in that element.

Just a quick snapshot of what dinner looks like. We do have a very exciting fireside chat with Pam Bains, a performance with Aditi Bhalla, and the launch of the new YSPN strategy so definitely an eventful evening and we look forward to seeing you then. Lastly, again thank you so much very humbly for the bottom of all of our hearts here at YSPN you guys have made today wonderful and I hope you weren't too bored of listening to my voice today but thank you, pat on the back for you all and we look forward to seeing you in 2021.