Ideas for better future from the next generation

Bright ideas for business start-up packs for young entrepreneurs and an app to help young people live away from home were pitched in Canberra last week as part of the ABC’s Heywire Regional Youth Summit.

Indigenous youngsters from remote and rural parts of Australia were among this year’s crop of winners in the annual Heywire competition, which challenged entrants to tell their own stories in front of the camera.

Janaya Hennessy from Nowra, Ebony Williams from Pemberton, Max Alpin from Kowrowa and Raymond Binsiar from Meekatharra went to Parliament House at the end of the summit to turn their ideas for regional Australia into pitches for federal funding.

Max Alpin’s group pitched the idea for a new ‘Adulting’ app, which would help young people from remote communities cope with living at university.

‘How do you change a tyre? Know what to cook for dinner?’ he said.

The Adulting app would answer those kinds of questions, along with budgeting advice to help young people navigate life in the city.

Raymond Binsiar’s group proposed working with Lions and Rotary clubs to make the Our Place project happen. It aimed to turn unused buildings into meeting spaces for young people to use in the evenings.

It would tackle the problem of having large numbers of youths walking the streets at night in rural and remote communities.

‘We do have a youth centre in my area but it is for under-15-year-olds and it closes at 8pm,’ he said.

‘When it closes the kids walk around the streets and get into trouble. Our Place would stay open longer and help with this.’

The four Indigenous Heywire competition winners who attended the summit were joined in Canberra by Indigenous Trailblazer winners Adrianna Irvine, Daniel Farmer and Nathan Doyle, who participated in a separate round funding pitches.

Senior producer for ABC Heywire Jonathan Atkins said 7 groups had pitched ideas and would have the opportunity to continue working in their communities see them through. ‘Part of the Heywire challenge is for the competition winners to find existing organisations to partner with to deliver the projects,’ he said.

‘There’s $100,000 up for grabs for community groups that want to take these ideas and run with them. These will become a reality in regional Australia.’

A full list of Heywire winners and their stories can be seen here: https://www.abc.net.au/heywire/winners