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Gen Z & the Future of Work
14 Plays1 month ago
This week, we're diving into the future of work and what young people need to know to thrive in it. With rapid advancements in technology and AI reshaping the job landscape, preparing the next generation requires more than just short-term fixes: it calls for long-term, strategic thinking.
Joining us this week is Nathaniel Diong, Founder & CEO of Future Minds Network. Together, we unpack how these seismic shifts are impacting the world of work, how a "future generations" mindset can better equip young people for uncertainty, and enable policymakers to make decisions that will ensure a brighter tomorrow.
Future Minds Network is an award-winning social entreprise dedicated to unlocking the full potential of Gen Z through entrepeneurship and life skills education programs.
Keen to learn more? Follow us on our socials @forourfuturecampaign and @foundationsfortomorrow.
Take action by signing our petition for a federal Wellbeing of Future Generations Act!
What's in It For You is a Foundations for Tomorrow podcast, produced as part of the 2025 For Our Future campaign. It is hosted by Clare Beaton-Wells and Anna Bezzu.
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Transcript
Acknowledgement of Indigenous Lands
00:00:00
Speaker
This podcast is recorded on the traditional lands of the Camaraygal people of New South Wales, Australia, as well as with our guest today on the lands of the Wurundjeri people in Melbourne. We pay our respects as co-hosts to Indigenous elders past and present and acknowledge that intergenerational leadership and long-term practices of stewardship have been cornerstones of Indigenous cultures for thousands of years.
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello and welcome
Introduction of Hosts and Their Passions
00:00:30
Speaker
back to the podcast where we two young, passionate Aussie women break down why young people say in policy matters and what's really in it for them when it comes to future generations policy, the Australian election, which we had just a few weeks ago, and what you can do as a young person to shape the policies that will build your future.
00:00:46
Speaker
I'm Claire Beaton-Wells, a former political staffer, future generations champion and policy innovator. I'm passionate about inspiring young people to lead the charge when it comes to addressing some of our most complex challenges.
00:00:57
Speaker
And I'm Anna Bezu, a corporate girl bridging business and impact, helping young people connect everyday choices to long-term change in society. Coming up on
Exploring Future of Work for Youth
00:01:06
Speaker
the show today, we're stepping just a bit outside the policy realm to talk about the future of work for young people and the kinds of skills they need to be developing to prepare themselves for what's ahead.
00:01:16
Speaker
We're going to dive into things like social entrepreneurship, what it means to reshape systems so that they work for you and not the other way around, and what to do if you have a bold idea but just don't know where to start.
00:01:28
Speaker
But first, let's begin with our tunnel vision check, as always. Anna, what's yours for today? Okay, I want
Critique of Labor Party's Student Debt Policy
00:01:35
Speaker
to talk about Labor's election promise to slash 20% of student health debts.
00:01:40
Speaker
On the surface, it sounds like a significant relief, and for many, it actually is. But here's a thing. While it's a helpful move, it's also a classic case of po political short-termism, and here's why.
00:01:51
Speaker
It's relief in the middle of a constant living crunch, for sure, but it actually doesn't fix the broken system that got us here. Health debt rise with inflation. Not income. So if you're earning modestly like modestly, let's say, your debt keeps growing even if you're not in a position to repay. So a 20% cut now doesn't stop that cycle. It's like slapping a band-aid on a system-wide fracture.
00:02:15
Speaker
But here's the silver lining. The future could look very different. As part of its response to the recommendation of the Australian University's Accord Report released in February last year,
00:02:26
Speaker
The Labor government has committed to major structural reforms that could change the game long term, which includes a new system for debt repayment where repayments don't kick in until you earn over $67,000. That's thousands of dollars back in people's pockets.
00:02:42
Speaker
The second is the creation of a Treasury Education Commission tasked with completely rethinking how courses are priced, moving away from the previously job-ready graduate scheme that inflated fees for arts, business, and law students.
00:02:55
Speaker
Thirdly, proposed model where student fees align with future earning potential. meaning humanities students might eventually pay the lowest rates, but we'll have to wait until at least 2027 to see that happen.
00:03:06
Speaker
And finally, needs-based funding for equity students, meaning more support for First Nations, regional and low-income students. That's the kind of direction that we really need, not just the temporary discounts, which again, sound great, but we need a full rethink of what education is for, who it serves and how we can make it fair.
00:03:25
Speaker
So yes, celebrate the 20% relief if it helps you now, but don't let it distract you from pushing for deeper and ah more of a structural reform that supports systems from day one, not just after they've actually made the commitment to their education.
00:03:39
Speaker
Because the real problem isn't in a political win, it's in a future where access to education doesn't mean carrying a lifelong burden. So with that in mind, I think it's a perfect segue into our episode where we are actually going to talk about some of the inequities that exist in our education system.
00:03:54
Speaker
So I want to bring in our guest on this. Claire, would you like to introduce him? Absolutely. lee
Nathaniel Deong's Work and Achievements
00:03:59
Speaker
So today we're sitting down with someone who's reshaping how we prepare young people for the future and more specifically the future of work.
00:04:07
Speaker
Nathaniel Deong is the founder of and CEO of Future Minds Network, an award-winning social enterprise. Since 2018, Future Minds has equipped 13,000 youth with future-ready skills like innovation, a growth mindset, entrepreneurship, enabling them to find and create jobs and their own businesses.
00:04:24
Speaker
He'd been recognized on Forbes 30 Under 30, named a finalist for the Commonwealth Young Person of the Year, as well as been named australian Young Australian of the Year. Nathaniel's work is not just about creating job pathways, it's about re-imagining education, agency, and impact.
00:04:40
Speaker
and empowering young people to believe in the power of themselves. So in this episode, we'll dive into his journey from high school hustler to systems change advocate, and what's really in it for you if you're a young person seeking to challenge the status quo and lead the way for the future.
00:04:54
Speaker
Nathaniel, welcome to the podcast. How are you feeling today? I'm great. Thanks for having me. I love the um the little high school hustler part of the bio. I've i've never associated myself with that, but I'm going to use that from now on.
00:05:07
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. You should fully embrace that. um So yeah, I'd love to start today at the beginning for
Nathaniel's Educational Background and Future Minds
00:05:16
Speaker
you. I think your journey, it's really quite unique when you look at And for someone who is still so young, i can imagine many who they look at your profile, they look at your LinkedIn and they wonder what has enabled you to achieve so much success so rapidly. And obviously,
00:05:31
Speaker
from the outside looking in, i think many do just see, it's very easy to just see the accolades, the numbers of young people that have been helped, futures transformed, but don't think that necessarily always gives an idea of the story behind it all, potentially the setbacks, the learning curves, the breakthroughs that you've been on. So I'd love to start by asking you, where did your journey begin? How did you end up in the world of social entrepreneurship?
00:05:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great question. And look, I think A good way to start would be right at the beginning. You know, I grew up watching my parents, you know work three jobs to to make ends meet. And, you know, we're migrants from Malaysia.
00:06:11
Speaker
um And they never had the opportunity to go to high school. So really early on, this idea of the importance of education was just drilled into me.
00:06:22
Speaker
It was like the only thing that was important. Grades are the only thing that mattered. If you got a good job, you know, sorry, if you got a good education, you'd end up having a good job and if a good job, you'd have a good life. And, you know, was this flow on effect. And I think i I really struggled with this idea because I was not the best in school.
00:06:44
Speaker
And, you know, I had grown up um getting really good grades in my first high school. But when I moved to my new one, I was like bottom of the class. I was struggling, barely getting by.
00:06:58
Speaker
And so I really struggled with this idea that um education was just about grades. um So for me, part of the journey to starting Future Minds was, you know, in this moment of disengagement. And I had started skipping classes. I didn't really want to be in the classroom.
00:07:21
Speaker
So one day I was walking through um and I saw on the bulletin board, there was this opportunity to sign up for a two day excursion. and i was like, two days off school, like sign me up straight away. Like I'll do anything.
00:07:32
Speaker
um And I remember walking into this room. I was 15, 16 at the time. it was a room full of doctors, engineers and lawyers. And they said in 48 hours, we're going to solve the healthcare crisis.
00:07:45
Speaker
And as a 15 year old, was just like, boom, like what? that's not making sense. And I watched over the the next few hours and days as they talked about design thinking and business modeling and pitching, and they just brought an idea into reality. And I thought to myself, you know, what would happen if I brought that back to my school?
00:08:06
Speaker
How cool would it be if we could learn in a different way? If it wasn't just about grades, but we could we could build ideas and turn them into reality. We could see the problems that we saw in our local community and we could create real solutions to them.
00:08:19
Speaker
And that's really where the journey started. 15, 16 year old yo me was like, how hard can it be? How hard can it be to bring 100 young people in one room and and run this thing called a hackathon? If they can do it, I can.
00:08:33
Speaker
um And it sort of snowballed from there. That's interesting. Okay. i love that. I feel like there's so much to unpack in that. And obviously that's like, we're just touching the iceberg of of the origin story and like talk us through the arc of development for the Future Minds. Like what actually is Future Minds? Like what is the problem that you're trying to solve and why you trying to solve it?
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah, great
Empowering Youth through Future Minds
00:08:56
Speaker
question. Future Minds is an education organization and we are really focused on bridging the gap between traditional schooling and the future that young people will work in.
00:09:10
Speaker
um So we empower young people, particularly from marginalized backgrounds in low SES and regional schools to help them learn the skills they need for the future. um We do that through entrepreneurial programs um where we help them build their own businesses and social enterprises and run them.
00:09:28
Speaker
And so it's a process of teaching them the skills, giving them the confidence and even giving them their first real income by putting them at, you know, real life shopping centers, at festivals to sell their goods and really give them an opportunity to create jobs in their own local communities.
00:09:46
Speaker
So we see education as that's hope, you know, as a second chance for a lot of these young people to see that, hey, I actually have more potential than I thought that I ever did.
00:09:58
Speaker
I can also see how that mirrors a lot of your own experience, you know, when you were in high school and how you found constantly you were looking for ways to get out of things or just, yeah, the lack of the lack of motivation to be there, but then also realising from your own lived experiences just how crucial and how vital having an education would be for your own future. And I really love how you went from just sort of, yeah, an experience that you signed up for is, oh, hey, this is a cool way to get out of school for a few days. And then that transformed and snowballed into work that's now impacting thousands of young people. But what I take away from that, what resonates for me is just the way in which you've
00:10:40
Speaker
seeing firsthand how when you transform the metrics by which we measure success, no longer using just grades or, you know, the, yeah, the results you get on a certain assignment or test one day and you actually start to reshape or rethink, okay, what does success look like and how,
00:10:57
Speaker
Yeah, what what can that mean for young people in the context of the world that they're and the challenges that they're facing today but yeah, I guess Future Minds Network grew out of that and you started to actually re remodel how we're measuring success and the skills that people need to to move up in their careers in the future. And so I guess...
00:11:18
Speaker
Yeah, I'd love you to speak a little bit more to with the programs that you're building today and the opportunities that you're supporting young people to have in developing their own businesses. How does that kind of model of education and social change, how does that differ from what you experienced when you were in high school and still the same models we're seeing in education today?
Critique of Traditional Education System
00:11:38
Speaker
That's a great question, which don't have a amazing answer to but I have the thought bubbles of an amazing answer, so will come to me. but Look, I think that the big thing for me was I looked at the education system I was in and I kept asking, why is it built this way?
00:12:00
Speaker
What is the reason behind why we measure our worth by grades? Why we measure our worth by how well we do in class and not measured by the future that we want to create?
00:12:15
Speaker
I felt like everything was so focused on What can we do now and who are we now rather than who do we want to be? And so I think that was the whole part of changing the system that I became obsessed with because, you know, education largely has been the same for the past a hundred years.
00:12:37
Speaker
its It's about a power dynamic of someone who knows more and someone who is learning. um That's not inherently bad. There's a time and place for that because we are all coming from different experiences and we all have to come to a base level of knowledge first before we go out and explore our own pathways.
00:12:59
Speaker
But I think what challenged me about that was that that system never really breaks. Like we go through kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, university, all through these same structures.
00:13:12
Speaker
And then when we leave university or when we leave high school, we don't know what to do anymore because we don't we no longer have that support system and that structure that we've been brought up with.
00:13:27
Speaker
And so I think that has been really my driving force ah of why I care so much about changing the system and thinking about a different way of doing things. You know, when I was growing up in high school, I think the biggest issue for me was it seemed like everything had a right or wrong answer.
00:13:47
Speaker
You know, you know, maths had a right or wrong answer, science had a right or wrong answer. But when you looked at the world, everything was falling apart. You know, you know, we had rampant poverty, we had a housing crisis, we had homelessness. And I was like, why are we solving things that we already know the answer for, but not solving those things that are breaking down society?
00:14:10
Speaker
And so, you know, I just couldn't understand that. You know, I sound like, don't know, Jaden Smith being like, we should have talked about the political and economic crisis of the world when we were 10 years old. like But genuinely, that's how I felt as a young person.
00:14:25
Speaker
Like looking out to the system and being like, I don't know where I fit because when I when i leave school, I'm going to go out into this big, bad world where we don't have any of the answers and all we know is how to a maths equation.
00:14:38
Speaker
And that was a problem for me. Yeah, I resonate with that so much. I felt for most, I what i was really fortunate. I went, I grew up and I went, my parents sent me to a private high school. i was at the same school all the way through from prep right into year 12. And when I finished, yeah, I felt very much like you stepping out into college And basically, I went from like a pond to the ocean and I felt like I didn't know how to swim. And I realized that for the for the better part of 12 years of my life, I had been spoon fed. I had been sheltered from all of the harsh realities that, yeah, we face now out here in the world and we have to learn how to deal with and to confront. And
00:15:21
Speaker
Similarly to you, I think I do, i do not, that does make me sit back and wonder why does the system seek to shelter us so much from the messiness, from the complexity, from, yeah, I guess the harsh realities of the world. And, and I look back at that and I think,
00:15:38
Speaker
What that's teaching a lot of young people is to shy away from it and to go, you know, it's okay to let someone else solve those problems rather than, and this is a problem. I see something. Now let's go and do something about it.
00:15:50
Speaker
um So I really love the way that you, yeah, I guess the system, the way that you think about the system is how can I make it work for me and the problems that we face rather than how do I fit myself into a box and and work within this system that clearly isn't working to the world that is out there beyond it.
00:16:08
Speaker
um No, I love that. Yeah, I guess having yeah been in the space of social entrepreneurship for a few years now and and been running these programs and having so much success, I wonder, do you feel as though there are more things today for young people to be optimistic about who are coming out of high school than they were, say, five or so years ago when you were when you were kid?
00:16:33
Speaker
I'm cautious to come off as a boomer and say, yes, you should be optimistic about everything and the world is so much better. um But I would say yes and no You know, I think we're in a time where we have more agency than ever.
00:16:49
Speaker
Like we're seeing young people all around the world mobilizing and really getting behind causes that they care about. And it's incredible.
Dual Nature of Youth Empowerment
00:16:58
Speaker
Like we have resources at our fingertips that we did not have two decades ago.
00:17:04
Speaker
um We have, you know, Canva. We have, sorry, I shouldn't be naming tools. we have we have We have everything at our fingertips, right? We have resources. We have, um you know, incredible communities, you know, um ways to connect online, ways to bring people together that just make change making so much easier.
00:17:27
Speaker
And so there is so much to be optimistic about because i feel like we have gone behind beyond the society that just cares and looks passively at things and have become a society that cares and does something about it.
00:17:42
Speaker
But you know, at the same time, i sometimes feel like it is a curse and a blessing to be able to hold all of this power. Because when you look at the messaging that we get from our politicians and from greater society, it's almost like they're saying, well,
00:18:05
Speaker
you know what, we will acknowledge that we have screwed up for this generation, but now it's your time to shine because, hey, you have the power now and you have the tools and now it's your time to take over.
00:18:16
Speaker
And I think that the reason I say it's a curse and blessing is, yes, it is empowering that we now can do something about it, but it's also a big burden to carry.
00:18:27
Speaker
to feel like as young people, as this generation, we need to now step up and fix all of the stuff that's screwed up from the other generation. We shouldn't have to feel that burden.
00:18:38
Speaker
We shouldn't have to feel that pressure that every young person coming out of high school today has to start an organization like me, or has to become a founder, or has to become an entrepreneur. That is not a path for everybody.
00:18:49
Speaker
It is a good path. And, you know, I've enjoyed it and there's been highs and lows, but
00:18:55
Speaker
The reason I say no to your question is, you know, that that burden shouldn't be a burden that we have to, or feel an obligation um to live by.
00:19:07
Speaker
Children and youth should just be children and youth, and we should be able to celebrate that. um And so I feel really strongly about being optimistic, but also feeling guilty that we're having this burden on young people today.
00:19:23
Speaker
I think that's a really interesting take because I think, you know, in the context of all of the looming crises that we're facing, a lot of people say that hope is the flywheel that's going to enable us to break through these, to change the system and whatnot. But I love how you bring that back to the level of, well, at the same time,
00:19:41
Speaker
Children are losing out on the, like, it's it's actually a privilege today to be able to say, i grew up as just a child or young person. I just got to enjoy my childhood. I got to enjoy the freedom and just, yeah, the carefreeness of being a kid without having to worry about, yeah, the future that I was facing. And so I guess if we talk about...
00:20:00
Speaker
alleviating that burden that a lot of young people are feeling. They're like, oh, I've got to carry all of the world's problems on my shoulders. If there were one or two things that policymakers could be doing right now to actually lift that burden and make, you know, childhood something that can just be enjoyable and carefree, what would you say that would, what would you say those policy shifts would be? How
Intergenerational Collaboration in Policymaking
00:20:23
Speaker
can our decision makers, our policies politicians be better securing the futures of young people?
00:20:30
Speaker
Ah, the word that immediately comes to mind is collaboration, but it is such an overused word and it's so, so used out of context.
00:20:43
Speaker
And so the caveat that I'll put to this is we need to work together as generations. And, uh, I think, I think the big challenge that we face as society particularly in this day and age, is this messaging of us versus them.
00:21:05
Speaker
And I think, you know, I even sometimes have to think about my language when I talk to to policymakers and when I talk to young people, is we often try to categorize people um and we put them into little boxes and we say, okay, well, Gen Z thinks this way and millennials think this way and boomers think this way and it's black and white.
00:21:26
Speaker
And I think Part of the issue with this is we, we almost are predicting the behavior of people based on their generations. And so we're not able to open ourselves to how much we can learn from each other.
00:21:44
Speaker
And so, you know, often when we are having this conversation about like, what can policymakers do to help young people, we see them as like two separate things, trying to achieve two separate goals.
00:21:56
Speaker
But I think we couldn't be further from the truth, right? At the end of the day, a lot of us and but most society would agree that we're trying to create good outcomes for the world.
00:22:08
Speaker
ah But we we pit ourselves against each other too much. And so like even if you look at the climate movement, for example, you know there's a lot of conversation about like how this generation of young people are more feisty than ever before, and they're demanding more things from policy, and they're shifting systems even more than all the other previous generations.
00:22:32
Speaker
But the millennials and boomers before us were doing the same thing. you know They were pushing for systems. They were in grassroots activism. They were in advocacy. um And those boomers and millennials were you were once young people who are now in positions of power.
00:22:51
Speaker
And I think the disconnect is that when we almost graduate between generations, when I go from Gen Z to you know you know, when Gen Alpha looks at me and I become essentially equivalent of a boomer, you know, this same language that we use about the difference in generations will continue to tear us apart.
00:23:09
Speaker
And so when I talk about collaboration, you know, what I really want to see from policymakers and decision makers is realizing that each of us as individuals have so much knowledge to share and this conversation has to be intergenerational.
00:23:25
Speaker
When we include youth, it can't just be about let's consult them and hear their ideas and get them on a round table. That is all great, but that is the first stepping stone into the door.
00:23:38
Speaker
We need to go from the door to the elevator and straight up to the building. And that's not where we are right now. And I think when I talk about that collaboration, it's beyond just having these conversations. It's saying, well, I know that each generation after me is gonna be affected by this policy change.
00:23:57
Speaker
How can I ensure that they are the ones If they are affected by them, how can I show they are the ones who are actually out there implementing? And what that looks like is trusting young people to lead initiatives that affect them, funding young people to lead initiative initiatives that affect them, and including them in every single step of the process.
00:24:16
Speaker
And I think right now we've got to this stage where policy consults young people and we have great youth advisory councils. We have a great office for youth, but we don't have the level of trust in implementation.
00:24:29
Speaker
And we don't have the trust that young people actually know what they're doing and will do well when they have resources. We have one of the most like concentrated spaces of all time with the amount of youth led organizations that are popping up day in and day out in the past five years, right? There are hundreds of youth led organizations. And every week I see a new one coming up.
00:24:57
Speaker
But the problem is that we don't fund them. And so they end up just dying. And so we have incredible young people who have so much to share, but our governments and our institutions are not trusting young people to run these things. And so even when you look at the education space, we have people who are 50, 60, 70 years old and you know bless them, they've done an incredible job in education.
00:25:24
Speaker
um But they're trying to interact with young people, 15 years old, 16 years old, and they they have just lived in a completely different time. You know, they can't resonate with these young people anymore. And the challenges that they're feeling, the fears they're experiencing are not the same.
00:25:41
Speaker
And so I look at myself as well. I'm my early 20s. I know that by the time I'm 30, I'm going to have to age out or put someone else into my shoes because the challenges that I face are going to be completely different from these other generations.
00:25:57
Speaker
But I don't think we're there yet institutionally. And I think that's part of the problem. We think that we can still fix things without really without really getting past that first block.
00:26:09
Speaker
like Hearing is one thing, but getting on that elevator and going up to the entire building is another. And I think that's that's where we're still missing out right now. Yeah, I just want to pick up on one thing you said there.
00:26:21
Speaker
I know, Anna, you might have something to say, but trust. It's just, it's the fundamental, it's the missing element of the puzzle, right? Like I think when you think about what we were just talking about this in our last episode with our previous guest about what meaningful youth participation in politics and policymaking really means, meaningful means not just giving young people a seat at the decision-making table, but then actually being willing to trust what they're saying and use it and treat it as actionable insight, credible subject matter that is something that could actually be a part of the solution and transforming the system. So I find that really interesting as well to talk about in the context of what it means to be a political leader because a big part of leadership
00:27:10
Speaker
as you touched upon in and the end of your response there was, well, recognizing that as a leader you leave a legacy and so you've got to think about those who are coming up underneath you and who's going to take your place one day and a big part of being able to step up but or step away out of leadership and leave that kind of legacy is being able to have that trust in the next generation, the next people who are going to take your place. And I think you're so right to to recognize that that is just a fundamental part
00:27:43
Speaker
of the problem that we're overlooking, we've got incredible structures and bodies like youth advisory councils who've got an incredibly saturated ah youth advocacy and activism space. But yeah, the key, I guess, element that is missing is that intergenerational trust.
00:27:59
Speaker
What would you say, Anna? Yeah, we often have this. Oh, sorry, Anna, please go ahead and then I'll know jump in after you. it It was actually related to that. I think the word even isn't in just the lack of trust, it's a lack of confidence, which is, you know, the confidence in one's ability to, even if they like, you know, different generations may not understand us in our generational and our issues that we may have.
00:28:24
Speaker
It's almost like the confidence in order to empathize with, okay, I don't get it, but I trust in your abilities to execute and make a change and in fact change on this. um So I think that's, there's like a one one layer deeper and I think it demands more emotional empathy and demands more emotional intelligence from the collaboration efforts that we are putting in.
00:28:45
Speaker
So it's not just sort of saying I trust in them. It's like, I really believe in their their ability to to make a change. So I sort of just wanted to to relay that. But Nathaniel, please keep going with what you're sharing. No, love that.
00:28:56
Speaker
um You know, and and one of the things that we talk about, we have this model.
Success of Intergenerational Hackathon
00:29:00
Speaker
We talk about co-design a lot, right? and It's talked about so much in the sector. But where we really want to move from is from co-design to co-collaboration, right?
00:29:10
Speaker
We do plenty of consultation. we do plenty of co-design. um But I think the difference that I want to show here is Codesign relies on working with young people to get past an idea, to hear about their thoughts, and then figure out a solution that we can implement.
00:29:28
Speaker
But the missing part there is that implementation that I talked about. What happens after that solution is created? It is then given to a policymaker, a decision maker, an organization to then implement, who at that point of time have no youth input.
00:29:42
Speaker
And what happens when, let me give you another analogy, if you have an amazing recipe and you give it to a chef who's never cooked in that cuisine before, it turns out terrible. And this is the exact same concept, right? We have an amazing solution that's been co-designed with young people and decision makers.
00:29:58
Speaker
Then it comes off to another person who does not work with young people at all and doesn't understand the context. And so they cannot deliver. And so this concept of co-collaboration is how do we go beyond that?
00:30:10
Speaker
Okay, we have a great solution. We've worked together. We've found something that works now. Let's now give you the power to collaborate with us and create that thing. Let's fund you.
00:30:22
Speaker
Let's make sure that you are involved in every step of building that process with us. And that's where we really want to get to. um we in had a nice trip down to Dubai.
00:30:37
Speaker
and we we talked about this problem um that we were experiencing with the Australian government and their federal department of of climate change, energy and water.
00:30:52
Speaker
And, you know, the the overarching theme and the thing that we heard again and again and again from young people was we were having such big and ambitious climate targets for Australia's future, but young people didn't feel like they were a part of it.
00:31:08
Speaker
And they didn't feel like they had any agency or pathway to be involved. And so we decided, let's figure out a way that we can imbue this concept of co-collaboration that we talk so much about.
00:31:24
Speaker
And so after a period of conversation, we went back and forth, back and forth. um We convinced the Australian government to partner with us on an event. And we ran Australia's first intergenerational climate policy hackathon.
00:31:39
Speaker
It's a very, very long winded way of saying, how do we bring together different generations together to create a better climate future where we go beyond this concept of co-design and figure out once we have these solutions, how to actually implement them.
00:31:56
Speaker
So we had 16 policy proposals that came out of that and we spent the day just working together, chatting through from start to finish, you know what are some of the biggest barriers young people are facing when it comes to climate change? What are they scared about? what What isn't being addressed by government?
00:32:13
Speaker
And I think one of the most powerful parts of that was we came into this knowing that decision makers and policy makers would have assumptions. And so we had and assumption crusher part of our segment.
00:32:27
Speaker
And so we let these young people talk, but then we also let the policy makers talk. And we allowed them to share, you know, what were all of the assumptions that they had about young people before they came into this room?
00:32:41
Speaker
And were they true and were they not true? And I think for us, creating that space of conflict um where people could come openly and challenge each other's ideas and challenge each other's perceptions was the most powerful thing. We often look at conflict as a bad thing.
00:32:57
Speaker
um But when it comes into generational collaboration, conflict is the best thing that can ever happen. Because if you don't have conflict, you're not understanding the different strengths or weaknesses that the generations bring together.
00:33:09
Speaker
And so we had this, you know, we had this segment where we un understood understood the barriers, then we had these assumption crashes, and then we brought together different solutions and and policy proposals.
00:33:20
Speaker
One of these was on a new youth advisory council on climate change. um where young Australians could represent you know their needs and interests on an international scale.
00:33:35
Speaker
And we had some great interests from from policymakers. And as you and you do, go in on that big high and they're all like, oh, yes, incredible. We'll do this eventually in 10 years or so.
00:33:52
Speaker
And we had this incredible high and, uh, you know, ah few months later, we're still sitting on this and we're like, what can we do about this? What can we do about this? Um, and so we then went on a process over the next few months where you worked with over 30 youth led orgs across Australia to bring this to life.
00:34:08
Speaker
Um, we ended up writing a 20, 30 page report to the Australian government. And, uh, I think it was last month or four weeks ago, Australian government announced that we have our new Youth Advisory Council on International Climate Change.
00:34:24
Speaker
So that that policy passed. And it was this process, you know, was this process of of going through the red tape. was this process of of having this conflict that allowed this to happen.
00:34:37
Speaker
And I think the real powerful point there was it could have ended like every other policy proposal ended and we could have ended there at, you know, there's 16 policy proposals and oh yeah, there was one really good one, but we're not going to do anything about it.
00:34:51
Speaker
But what took that step further was us saying like, and not when I say us, I'm not saying future minds, I'm saying all these 30 youth led orgs, right? But it was us as a collective, you know, coming together and saying, Hey,
00:35:05
Speaker
we you want to be involved in the implementation. We want to design exactly how it looks like. And so in that proposal, we specified things like, what do these young people consult on?
00:35:17
Speaker
How many young people do we want? What is the representation? What is the compensation? What does everything look like? And then the implementation became so much easier because we had consensus from 30 youth-led orgs across Australia sending a real strong signal to government.
00:35:35
Speaker
And so I think that's that's a really beautiful example of that co-collaboration in play and what I want to see more in our policy systems. Thank you for breaking that down for us. i That's just unlocked so much for me. i One thing I particularly want to just draw out from that is, again, taking it back to the...
00:35:54
Speaker
The idea of meaningful youth participation and one thing that I think you've just underscored there is when we think about what meaningful youth participation means, we need to be asking ourselves not just how do we include and bring young people to the table, but hat like like how do they actually want to be included when they get there and what...
00:36:14
Speaker
kind of role do they want to actually play in the policy process and what meaningful looks like for many of them is as you have just identified being a part of the journey from start right through to finish not just being included in the ideation stage but the actual implementation and execution of it that and I find it super Ironic to think about politicians who rack their brains over and over again about why have we had so much consistent chronic policy failure when it comes to solving crises like housing, like cost of living, like climate change that fundamentally affect the next generation or even the current generation of young people ah like us.
00:36:52
Speaker
um yeah, millennials and Gen z I find it super interesting that politicians can't want can't seem to to grasp why we failed over and over and over again. It's because when you when you only just have the co-design stage rather than the co-collaboration, it's like you said with that analogy before, I loved it. It's like packaging up something that you've consulted an expert for input on, but then handing it off to someone who completely lacks, yeah, that subject matter expertise and that yeah, the skills needed to actually implement and execute it. And so I think that was just a beautiful example of that.
00:37:27
Speaker
It does make me wonder, actually, because that is just such and a beautiful example of successful co-collaboration amongst young people and and decision makers.
00:37:39
Speaker
i wonder to how you, yeah, I guess, do you have any insights about how we can create more opportunities like that, how we can facilitate more effective intergenerational collaboration where we we cultivate this level playing field between young people and decision makers um and facilitate those opportunities for breaking down those misunderstandings, those misconceptions?
00:38:02
Speaker
That's a great question. You know, my dream is, you know, we often have, you know, federal review reviews into to set in certain subject matter, so we'll have federal reviews into to mental health or into education or to employment, homelessness, whatever it is.
00:38:19
Speaker
You know, my dream is that every time we have a federal review, we run another intergenerational hackathon and we give them the space to be like, you know what? This is what my generation thinks.
00:38:32
Speaker
This is what I think. Challenge me. Break down my assumptions. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I'm right. ah Give me the space to work with you together.
00:38:43
Speaker
You know, I think a lot of times when we go through these review processes, we focus ah lot on what is currently happening, what has happened, and what do we want to do next.
00:38:58
Speaker
But we spend so much time on the first two that we forget the last. What are we going to do next? And you know, like it's important to do the first two, you know, like like everything they have their place, but we cannot progress if we forget our last step, what's next.
00:39:14
Speaker
We can't go anywhere. And so I think we spend so much time debating, you know, even when I'm at forums like Cobb, we spend so much time debating the language and all of the before steps that by the time we've reached the end and we want to think about after, nobody has any energy for that.
00:39:31
Speaker
And so if I was to rewrite this system, it would be how do we focus on the after first and then do the evaluation at the end? Because when we have space to think creatively, when we have space to challenge each other and come together as generations and just bring ideas to the table,
00:39:50
Speaker
all of the rest falls in, you know, we'll often find that, you know, even with these policy proposals, we had 16 of these policy proposals. By the time we got to the end, it spoke to all of the barriers and the reasons why everything was wrong in the first place. And it was our touch point to actually be like, now that we've seen the future, we can actually review how things are now because we are not matching up to that future.
00:40:15
Speaker
And I think it's almost looking at it in reverse, you know, You know, consultants often talk about, yeah, like the, what is it? Top down approach or whatever it is. I'm going to sound stupid because I forgot my consulting lingo here.
00:40:28
Speaker
I spent a long time as a consultant. It's terrible. um You know, and I think it's the same thing here. You know, it's really about how do we how do we look at the future and then come back to the present day because we'll see how much we're missing and how many steps that we need to take to actually get there.
00:40:46
Speaker
And so my dream really is like, if we, like the next time we have a federal review, scrap that for a second, but let's run an intergenerational hackathon first and then see what bold ambitious ideas we can have for the future and work backwards.
00:41:00
Speaker
Once we know where we are pointing to, we can start flying there. We can calculate what fuel we need. We can see if we're missing any tires or we're missing the wings. But if we don't have that, we're just going to focus on the fact we don't have the wings.
00:41:15
Speaker
And when we do fly, we'll have no idea where we're flying. And so I think it's the same thing. You don't have a direction or a vision. Exactly. how to get a plan of how to get there. That's right. Yeah. And so I think, it's yeah, for me, it's like, let's figure out that direction first.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yeah. I think that's beautiful. One thing, yeah, I guess the the key, i guess you're highlighting there about having those intergenerational hackathons is it's about space, right? Like if we don't give ourselves space,
00:41:45
Speaker
the space to think, to ideate, to innovate, to collaborate with one another, it's going to be ultimately impossible to design and to imagine a pathway forward. And I think because it might seem so simple, something like space or space It's, you know, it's just a given people. It's really, really easy to overlook it.
00:42:06
Speaker
And that's why, as you've said, we go so fundamentally wrong. we We go down the wrong highway. We take the wrong turn when we're going through this policy process. And then we ultimately end up in failure and racking our brains about, well, where did we go wrong in the first place? Because we didn't stop and think about what's the next step.
00:42:23
Speaker
Well, I think more than anything, what this conversation is really highlighting, something that you shared is like the mentality of like, what are we going to do about it? Like we can talk all day about the problem and we all have our unique perspectives on what's important, what we should be prioritizing.
00:42:39
Speaker
And I think so many of us can get just so stuck in the weeds of of that, of like the problems at play. But I think what you're really sharing is like, well, let's bridge from the insight and turn it into something actionable.
00:42:52
Speaker
So actually we can affect real change. And I think that takes an entire paradigm shift in one's thinking of like, i get all the problem and the data that we're collecting, but let's actually put something together. So it's like,
00:43:04
Speaker
ah an easy yes to these policymakers so that we can actually you know say this is how we can make this change and so I want to take it back to the young person because it's Podcasts, the premise about it is really empowering you know young people to start to to see themselves as as people who can not just be bystanders in all of this, but actually take an active role.
00:43:26
Speaker
Like, what would you say to that person who has all the dreams and ambitions and the motivations and who may not feel like they really conform into the traditional forms of education and who don't really feel like that they belong in that space, but they have all the energy and and and the drive in the world, but they just don't know where to start.
00:43:43
Speaker
what would you say to that young person? What sort of mindsets should they be cultivating? Who should they be spending their time with? What new sources should they be consuming? Like where do they even begin to make sense of all the burden that they're carrying?
00:43:55
Speaker
Don't think
Advice on Embracing Uncertainty and Change-making
00:43:56
Speaker
like me. Life will be easier. and um No, okay. Genuine answer. It's a great question. It's a question I get asked so much, you know, and there is no right place to start.
00:44:10
Speaker
I think i think that's the that's the answer that crushes a lot of people's souls. They're like, I want an answer. Give me an answer. How did you do this? Yeah, black and white. um There is no answer.
00:44:22
Speaker
And I think i think there's some there's kind so there's some comfort in that, you know knowing that we there is no right place to start. um you know As a young person, i I am scared of the future and that's why I named my thing Future Minds. You know, my whole organization is about creating a future that I don't understand right now and and that we're we're scared about.
00:44:45
Speaker
I have spent eight years running my education organization. I still do not know what I'm doing. And every day i am scared out of my mind that something's going to go wrong or this is going to crumble under my feet or I'm not doing something right. And that is the reality.
00:45:01
Speaker
of doing anything in this world, you are going to have doubts and that's okay. That's what makes us human. You know, I really struggle with that. I have to remind myself all the time that it's okay to not have things figured out.
00:45:16
Speaker
And if you want to create change in your community, it is going to be a hard journey. I'm sorry. It's not going to be easy. I always take it back to my story when people ask me this question was when I first started, I thought the biggest problem in the world was that young people were not skilled enough and they didn't have the skills they needed to face the future.
00:45:35
Speaker
Part of that's true. A lot of people don't have access to quality education, but part of that's completely wrong too, because when they do, what happens? Let me give you an example. What happens if we upskill 10,000 young people tomorrow?
00:45:48
Speaker
Will they have jobs? Maybe, maybe not. ah The problem with a lot of this black and white thinking is if we do go out and upskill 10,000 young people, but employers and businesses still don't understand how to work with young people, they will not have any jobs.
00:46:07
Speaker
And these 10,000 upskilled young people will just be sitting here outside the fence waiting for these employees to come around. And so part of our thinking had to shift to think about, well, hang on a second.
00:46:19
Speaker
We do need to upscale young people. That's important. But how do we also get employers, government, policymakers to understand how to engage with young people first? That is going to be the biggest shift to get them across the bridge.
00:46:32
Speaker
And so part of our work today is doing both of those things. And, you know, it's like helping companies shift their mindsets to understand that, hey, Gen Z have different expectations to work. They have different working styles. They have different ways in which they want to be led. They have agency that they want to have. They have so many different requirements and expectations.
00:46:55
Speaker
And it's actually worked really well because believe it or not, businesses are struggling to find talent because they are trying to put a square peg into a circle hole.
00:47:06
Speaker
And so, you know, I think, why Why was I talking about this? The reason i I came to this was I thought for so long that skills is the most important thing in the world.
00:47:17
Speaker
But over the years, I realized actually there's a different focus. And I think it's the same in any change making journey is that your needs and your thoughts are going to evolve over time.
00:47:28
Speaker
There is no right answer. I still don't think we have the perfect answer. You know, we can work with employers and young people, but I don't know, maybe I'm missing something else. I have no clue.
00:47:39
Speaker
I think the big thing is just really being willing to try things, even if you know they're not going to work out. My very first conference was an absolute nightmare.
00:47:53
Speaker
um i told you, i think I started with this, right? i was like, okay, let's bring a hundred young people in one room. Should be pretty easy. Let me tell you about that day. Day of.
00:48:05
Speaker
i was I remember i had come into my school, we were hosting it at my school, walked to the venue and expecting it to be empty so I could set up my chairs and all that.
00:48:17
Speaker
The venue was full. It was full of people. And I found out that the venue had been double booked that day. And so I had 80 angry students behind me being like, why can't we get in the doors? What's happening?
00:48:31
Speaker
Where are we going? Why are you so unorganized? um I was 16 at the time, so I blame my immaturity for my lack of organization. um But, you know, ah had all these people and then I moved to another room. When we got to that room, the projector broke down and we were so, so excited because we had a speaker who'd flown from Africa all the way to come and speak with us.
00:48:55
Speaker
That projector breaking down ended up lasting for an entire hour. um And so when we had got back on track and fixed that projector, that speaker had to fly back without speaking.
00:49:09
Speaker
And yeah, we were gutted. We had to put in so much energy, so much passion into being like, we're going to run the best event of all time and everything went wrong.
00:49:21
Speaker
Shortly after that speaker left, we had an entire school rock up without telling us. And so we had 20 additional mouths to feed. um So yeah, a lot of things went wrong. And I remember, you know, coming to the end of this event and being like, I'm never going to run this again.
00:49:33
Speaker
Worst thing that will happen in my life. But then I read the surveys and I read about these young people and they said, i love this. I loved being able to meet people from all these different schools. I've never learned in this way before.
00:49:46
Speaker
And that's what kept me going. You know, I think a lot of us think about failure as a bad thing. And we think, oh, what if I try and it all goes wrong? If I got it right on the first time, I wouldn't be doing it today.
00:50:01
Speaker
I'd be done. Cause I'd be like, I've done it already. It's easy. Why do I have to prove myself again? But because it went wrong, i was like, okay, i'm going to try it again. I'm going to do it better. And now it's like eight years of me doing that. And I'm kind of stuck with it now.
00:50:13
Speaker
So words of advice, just keep trying. Yeah. and and And I think there's like just such real realness and all of that. Like we're all trying to figure this thing out. It's no one has it all perfectly figured out. Like we're all adults here, but we're like, what are we going to be when we grow up? And I think that there's something very just like comforting in all of that is that there's no perfect place to begin. It's not like you have to have all the criteria fulfilled, the education, the this, the that, the accolades. You can just start as you are and like influence the circle that is around you and then
00:50:45
Speaker
grow that circle with time and and effort. So I think that that's really inspiring and I think that's a needed message to convey to our audience. I would love to hear though, if you'd be willing to share something that like you're inspired by things that you're noticing, the shifts that are occurring as a consequence of the work that you're doing. um what are What are some insights that you you're seeing that potentially a young person can hear and get a bit of relief about the future that they're going to inherit?
00:51:16
Speaker
Hmm, that's a great question. i was immediately going to say foundations for tomorrow. We love that. Taylor will love that.
00:51:28
Speaker
My second answer. but i think it it sort of comes back to to what I mentioned a bit earlier in the podcast was, you know, we're we're living in a time where resources are at our fingertips.
00:51:40
Speaker
Like we can do whatever we want um and that's liberating ourselves. bit scary, but liberating. And yeah, it gives me hope that when I look around, there are young people who are not scared to tackle these big problems.
00:51:58
Speaker
They're taking on things like homelessness and mental health and all of these big systemic challenges. And they're saying, yeah, I can do this. Like, how hard can it be?
00:52:09
Speaker
That is a constant source of inspiration for me, looking around and seeing young people who are just living their truth. I know that at times it can feel a bit overwhelming, you know, like when you, when you look at people and say, oh, you know, we've done this at 25 or 24 or you know, i don't know if you've seen any of the recent like Ivy league applications, but some of these 16 year olds are, oh my goodness, putting putting us all to shame.
00:52:40
Speaker
um But yeah, I think it's just, I think we're at a time where we have crossed some bridges and you know some big change is going to happen soon. um We just need to keep fighting and we just need to keep just trying, even if we don't know where things are going to work out.
00:52:58
Speaker
put in Put in what you can and and bring your passion to the world because it deserves to be seen. sentence for the quote book, I would say with that one. You're so right though. Young people, they're undaunted, they're bold, they're full of vision and creativity and enthusiasm. And I agree. I find it inspiring that, you know, we are starting to see, we have a lot, we have a long way to go, but we are starting to see some shifts and some recognition of the fact that that is the way that young people are. And it is inspiring and,
00:53:31
Speaker
something that fills me with hope to be able to see that young people are starting to be recognised that way. And, yeah, I think that's a beautiful thing. um So with that in mind, perhaps just one last question for you. um
Upcoming Projects: Youth Engagement Toolkit
00:53:42
Speaker
What comes next for you and for Future Minds Network?
00:53:47
Speaker
We are, at the moment, doing a big piece of research. So we're launching something called the National Youth Engagement Toolkit and we're talking with incredible youth-led orgs all across Australia to learn a little bit more about What are the barriers young people are facing to enter this big, scary world of social impact um and what we can do to help engage young people better?
00:54:11
Speaker
And so that's going to be a passion project over the next 12 months. um But we're talking to, you know, these incredible youth led orgs and really trying to send a bigger signal to government um around what it means to meaningfully involve young people in this big process and you know I'll definitely be dropping my co-collaboration model there.
00:54:36
Speaker
So that's one of the big projects. The other one that we're working on is um we really want to democratize careers education to young people, particularly in disadvantaged communities um like regional and MLSES schools.
00:54:50
Speaker
I think ah one thing that we've learned is like we We've done some incredible work over the past eight years, but our limit to scale has been our time and where we can be at once. And so one of the big projects we're working on now is some creating a new sort of digital careers academy where we can hopefully upskill up to 100,000 young people all across Australia and people from any region um can access the work that we do online.
00:55:18
Speaker
um And so, yeah, those two things are really exciting for us and going to be taking a lot of our time in the future. So hopefully the next time we catch up, I'll have lots to update you on.
00:55:28
Speaker
That's incredible. I should have known. There's always exciting things on the horizon with you in Future Minds. I love that though, especially the first project, um the way in which, yeah, you're making looking to make the best of what is a very saturated space and, yeah, staying true to, I guess, you know, it's one of our values at FFT, tea promoting collaboration over competition and work finding ways to work together and make the most of the opportunities that we have in harnessing the collective power of youth advocacy. So that's beautiful.
00:55:54
Speaker
um yeah thank you so much for your time with us it's yeah been incredible I yeah look forward to having you back soon for another conversation I've just been so enthused worries at all it's been great thank you so much
00:56:16
Speaker
Wow, what an interview. I think if I was to take one thing away from that episode, it's probably that young people don't need to wait for permission to enact change.
00:56:27
Speaker
And quite connected to that, I think those traditional beliefs about the things you need to succeed, like a high school diploma, university degree, a shiny academic record,
00:56:39
Speaker
well, they're all changing. And I think Nathaniel's journey demonstrates that success can just really be born out of having a bold idea and ah vision for what you want the system to look like. And then on top of that, the courage to go out and pursue that.
00:56:54
Speaker
And I think... If more young people today were being taught skills like that self-belief, leadership, and also had the mentors and the people actually trusting in them to lead, then I think we would be seeing a much more engaged and active generation of social entrepreneurs coming up and through our education system. And don't get me wrong.
00:57:15
Speaker
and We certainly are seeing that more of that now in society. Like young people like you and me, we're recognizing that the system isn't working for us, that we aren't seeing ourselves represented in politics. And so we're going out there and creating the solutions for ourselves.
00:57:28
Speaker
But I think it will just be even more exciting when the system actually finally catches up to that and the two begin to operate in harmony, like in concert rather than in isolation. Yeah, 100% agree. I think it's really encouraging to see young leaders like Nathaniel really taking up space and implementing change, actually utilizing insights and converting them to action.
00:57:50
Speaker
ah So I think we can all take something away from that. So that's all for now. We've got another episode coming up, but once again, if you'd like this one, please leave us five stars on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen in.
00:58:03
Speaker
And don't forget to sign our petition for a Wellbeing of Future Generations Act in Australia, because it matters. If you'd like to get involved, give us a follow on socials at For Our Future Campaign and at Foundations for Tomorrow.
00:58:16
Speaker
And you can always send us an email at hello at foundationsfortomorrow.org. We'd love to hear from you. I'm Anna Bazou. And I'm Claire Beaton-Wells. We'll be back shortly with another episode breaking down what's in policy and politics for you.
00:58:30
Speaker
Bye. Bye.