Solutions and stakeholders of
1. Confidence
One of the major challenges for Chinese Young professionals participating in International communications is identified by the participants as Confidence. Confidence is one major thing that needs to be boost up.
The strategies identified by the participants to boost up confidence are like Renewal the educational system. We argue that the renewal of the educational system is of great importance to let the YPs get confidence. It’s connected with the stakeholders including teachers, students and governments. For instance, the curriculum of agriculture is commonly lack in China’s universities. University of Liege and YPRAD Belgium work together to review curriculum focusing e-marketing courses and social media training. Another major strategy identified is the development of Personal /professional/experiences and trainings. This part is mainly the business of YP themselves. While the senior professors may provide more professional knowledge to the YPs. YPs can have increased confidence if they know that they belong to a professional network. To get more practices is identified as another major challenge. We believe that the more practices YPs have, the more confidence they get. YPs may have themselves exhibit publicly more frequently such as doing the public speaking and the presentations. This part connects with the stakeholders including the YPs themselves and the supervisors who guide them in a right way. Exposure to new technology is another challenge. Experts, students, and institutions may provide and get involved in to get access to the new technology. Find the field of interests and other similar like-minded people is another strategy to build confidence. YP themselves attribute to it most. And friends of them who share the same interest may inspire them. And their supervisors may give guides.
Participants then discuss what Interventions YPARD China can do to increase the confidence of YPs. Like University of Liege and YPRAD Belgium working together to review curriculum focusing on E－marketing course or social media training YPARD china can also involve in curriculum go. Program of YPARD conducted in English. YPARD an support more networking and YPs learn more and more professionals working in agriculture field. If YPARD publish activities in social media，that is also helpful. Speech contest in English language with reward for winner can be organized. Speech can be about agriculture topic. YPARD can also organize common public speaking program like “Toastmasters Club” in USA. Promote and Publish new technology and Upgrade the database of new technology and inform YPs about it is another interventions. The YPARD china website can incorporate internet based platform to share interest of YPs. So that common interest of YPs can be identified and people build their confidence. There can be more activities like today which helps to generate ideas. If there is some scholarship fund support and implement new ideas or activities of YPs by YPRA that would be better.
Solutions and stakeholders of
2. Funds
Ypard round table discussion on international communication
Ypard China organized a round table discussion on Challenge on Funding limitation for young professional agriculture which involved different stakeholders. The participants in this discussion pointed out Fund availability a challenge and the following were proposed as solutions to address the issue of limited funding:
1 Self financing; through this younger scholars and professionals can raise funds to enable them attend international forum and conferences and this can be done through personal effort and family support
2 Donation; through donation by involving stakeholders such as Successful rich business people, companies and governments institutions to help young profession to access funding for short courses, conferences/workshops and seminars abroad
3 Funding from companies/ employers; through stake holders such as business companies and employers such as Governmental and Nongovernmental institutions can provide funding for young professional to attend different workshop and training abroad
4 Scholarship and fellowships; this can be done via stake holders such as Universities, research institutions governments scholarships and UN-agencies.
5 International Cooperation agreements; through this agreements, young people can be involved in exchange programs and study abroad activities which improve their exposure on the international working environment and hence their communication is improved too
6 Internship; through internship in UN agencies and other companies will help young people to be exposed to an international working environment which in turn will enrich their international communication too
7 Grants; through government study abroad grants which can be specifically focused to young professional capacity building can also enable them to be more exposed to international conference and training which in turn expose them to different culture
8 Funding data base; this can be achieved in collaboration with different funding agencies such as companies, government institutions, UN agencies and NGOs. Where by young professional can be in a position to apply access funding for study abroad and international conferences
9 Project proposal writing; this is a very good and important way of accessing financial assistance from different stake holders such as UN Agencies, NGO and Governments. When they are successfully funded can enable young people to participate in different interaction workshops and short courses
Intervention for limited funds
1. YPARD can set up scholarship in agricultural school and provide more chance for young professionals to study abroad and participate in international communications.
2. YPARD can negotiate with the government and request for more financial support.
3. YPARD can make advertisement for some companies and raise fund in return.
4. YPARD can set up some demand-driven cooperation. By developing some technical skills which can be applied to those agricultural companies, YPARD can get some financial support in return.
5. YPARD may search cooperation with universities, government, institutions and agencies in the name of YPARD to raise support instead of letting the young professional apply for financial support on their own, which may not be taken into consideration by these agencies.
6. YPARD may provide some part-time jobs for young professionals to raise money for self-financing.
7. YPARD can work as a channel to send out fund information for young professionals.
8. YPARD can try to raise fund from rich farmers and provide technical support for them to improve the production.
9. YPARD should report the urgent need for financial support in China to global organization and make them realize the urgent need in China.
10. YPARD may try to collect fund from agricultural banks and provide specific investment strategies for the banks.
Solutions and stakeholders of
3. LANGUAGE BARRIER
Solutions / Stakeholders:1. Young professionals should be more confident in speaking English, and also raise awareness of improving English skills as well.
2. YPs should take concrete actions (listening radio, watching TV series, reading, taking opening courses online, etc.) to improve their English.
3. Language clubs should be established to facilitate the communication among Chinese students and international students.
4. Schools should hire more foreign teachers to give lectures in both professional field and technical writings.
5. More exchange program should be provided for YPs.
6. YPs could take exams, such as GRE, IELTS, etc. to push them learn English.
7. YPs should take advantage of SNS (wechat, weibo, etc.) to communicate with international students in the campus. / 1. Young professionals
2. YPs
3. Universities, student unions, and YPs
4. Universities
5. Universities
6. YPs
7. YPs
Inventions on English language study
1. Launch English competition
2. Promote English language resource to let Chinese young scholars use them, such as English vocabulary book
3. Organize activities. Since YPARD’s working language is English, it will provide opportunity for Chinese students to practice English language.
4. Find teachers to give lectures on technical writing skills.
5. Organize online chatting.
6. Translation YPARD website into Chinese. Promote Chinese interface.
Solutions and stakeholders of
4. The limited Resources or Information
There are 5 solutions.
1) Improvement, including application skills and capacity building. YPs should improve their skills, such as application and learning skills. They could take some training courses taken by NGOs or Institutions, for example, The XDF(新东方). However, the most important is to be improvement by oneself. YPs had better to some training by every chance.
2) Publicity Platform. We thinks that many YPs are lacking of channels or platform to get the information on how to and where to apply for the studying and working aboard. So they could get help from their teachers, supervisors, fellows, students, and experts, especially from those who had working or learning experience aboard. Because that these guys could tell us the useful skills and information. I suggest that YPs could focus on the websites of State Administration of Foreign Experts (国家外专局) and China Students Council (国家留学基金委). There are many worth information on them.
3) International cooperation between Institutions. The government plays an important role here, since it could offer projects for those who want to go aboard. We agree that if we could get help from the government, we could get more money to study or work aboard. And if we get more money, we could solve more difficulties. Also, we could get help from some institutions, like international cooperation departments in the research institutions and universities. Besides, the NGOs should be alternative ones, like the WHO, FAO, WFP. Furthermore, some Foundations may offer help too, such Bill Gates & Melinda.
4) Searching resources on foreign website. We suggest that the YPs could get more information and find useful ones when browsing the website of foreign universities and NGOs.
5) Get social participation. We should put more NGOs and companies get together to offer money and chances for the YPs to go abroad. The Mass Medias should tell more information about the platform and opportunities of working in FAO or learning in USA’s Colleges.
Inventions on limited resources
1,YP need forums, student club, round-table discussion. More forums are encouraged at local universities and research institutions.
2, Invite the Expert to give lectures
YP need use their network to invite related experts sharing their experience about the international exchange and also about the application skill of scholarship/fund.
3, Build up Website/Social media to share the information
First YP should collect the information like funding opportunities and job vacancies from global institutions, and then evaluate the information and post the related and valuable ones on the website/weibo of YP
YP should also build up online/offline connections with multiple stakeholders like government, institutions, NGO, industries and Medias, to let them help YP to post the news and information on their own websites, so that their students and employee can get the information efficiently. And this is also a great opportunity for YP to be more influential.
4Sharing by Email
During the meetings like today, YP should collect the email of attendants, so YP can forward the information to the attendants by email, and the attendants can sharing the information with their classmates and colleagues.