ICAAD led a workshop series on building multidisciplinary agility and leveraging pro bono partnerships at the Young Pacific Leaders TechCamp for Climate Action in Auckland, New Zealand.
Fifty youth Pacific representatives from 15 countries across the region gathered in Auckland, New Zealand for the Young Pacific Leaders TechCamp, convened by the U.S. Department of State. Participants came from a range of backgrounds including climate science, engineering, and education. The program for the weekend was structured around the capacity building needs of participants, and building and maintaining strong partnerships was a top priority.
ICAAD’s Erin Thomas led a workshop series on building multidisciplinary agility and leveraging pro bono partnerships that trained participants on both the strategy behind multidisciplinary teams but also the skills needed to be agile when disciplinary conflicts arise. The workshop also gave participants practical skills around envisioning and building pro bono partnerships with law and technology firms to amplify their climate action work.
One of the participants, Jotham Israel Keleino, shared, “As an Environment Officer in charge of a big campaign against Deep Sea Tailing Placement (Mining pollution) into Huon Gulf coastline communities in Papua New Guinea, I coordinate efforts between a range of expertise to address a complex issue. The techniques and strategies learnt from the multidisciplinary agility approach were strongly relevant and reinvigorates our confidence to generate new and creative solutions.”
Linh Do from the University of Melbourne shared, “In my work at the Wattle Fellowship, I design transformational leadership experiences for students at the University of Melbourne. I took a lot away from the multidisciplinary agility session because it speaks to how we work in the real world, even if it’s not how our higher education degrees are conferred.”