The Future Leaders Network is proud to announce the selection of the United Kingdom’s delegates to the Y20 Summit 2016.
The Y20 Summit, or G20 Youth Summit as it is sometimes known, is the youth engagement group of the G20. World Leaders use the youth engagement group in an attempt to freshen their understanding of the key issues facing young people across the globe and to connect with young people in order to solicit their solutions and ideas to help combat these challenges.
Therefore, annually, the host country of G20 also organises and hosts the youth counterpart. This typically takes the form of a week-long summit in the host country, bringing together young people from across the globe, where those challenges facing young people are discussed and debated. The output of each Summit is a communique, which is then fed back to the World Leaders for their perusal. It’s a genuinely unique chance to influence at the highest level.
The agenda for this year’s Summit will cover five key topics, including:
Entrepreneurship & Creative Thinking
Green Life and Sustainability
Poverty Elimination and Joint Development
Social Justice & Equal Opportunities
Partnership & Global Governance
The United Kingdom delegation will work with future leaders from the other G20 nations across the week-long Summit, in order to produce a communique, which will then be presented to G20 Leaders.
So, let’s meet the team:
Ian Mason
Ian is an economist, author and entrepreneur. He is the founder of an education company, providing physical and digital learning resources to schools across the UK and globally. Ian was instrumental in the creation and development of Virgin Start Up, the Sir Richard Branson’s not-for-profit company for entrepreneurs.
Ian campaigns on a number of key issues, including the universal right to education, enhancing social mobility through entrepreneurship and improving levels of financial literacy.
In his leisure time, Ian enjoys playing football, motorsport, shooting, ballroom dancing, running and listening to jazz/swing music. He is a member of MENSA and avid supporter of Aston Villa Football Club.
Ian will lead the UK Delegation to the Y20 Summit 2016.
Connect with Ian on Twitter: @ijmason
Stephanie Burrell
Stephanie graduated from the University of Oxford with first class honors and a Biological Sciences degree. She currently works as a Technology Consultant at Accenture where she advises clients and delivers new technology solutions for their businesses. Her work extends and deepens her understanding of technology and recently she was part of a team which delivered new e-commerce functionality for a United Kingdom retailer. For the implementation, Stephanie focused on maintaining a close working relationship between international colleagues to ensure the success of the project. Prior to joining Accenture, Stephanie spent her early career as a Strategic Communications Officer at the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom Government where she was a part of the strategic communications team for the Scottish Referendum.
Her interests are in new technologies, public policy, and global affairs. Her goal is to shape effective public policy that will guarantee technological advances benefit the global population. She has recently been selected for the inaugural class for the Schwarzman Scholarship Programme at Tsinghua University where she will focus her studies on public policy.
Jordan Abdi
Jordan is a medical student at Imperial College London, currently studying a BSc in Neuroscience. He co-founded the London Forum of Science Policy, a student-led think tank bridging the gap between academia and policy. Jordan is also the co-author of a policy review into youth alcoholism in Europe.
Ruth Foster
Born and bred in Northern Ireland, Ruth is a Religious Studies MA student at the University of Edinburgh. At Edinburgh Ruth has established Pathways for Peace, a neutral, non-aligned forum that aims to promote inter-community and inter-faith dialogue at the university. In addition to this Ruth has extensive experience in charity work and fundraising, recently organising a hitch hike from Edinburgh to Paris that raised £65,000 for charity. Recently Ruth has been rewarded with a scholarship to study at the Ivy League university Dartmouth.
Alongside her academic work Ruth is interested in understanding and repairing societies that have been divided. This has led her to work with NGOs in Jerusalem and Bosnia, as well as chairing youth forums at UK Parliament on the topic of Human Rights and International Development. After university Ruth hopes to work in conflict resolution and reconciliation, with a focus on youth development.