How Can Innovation Inspire Us to Succeed?

        How can innovation inspire us to succeed? Last Wednesday, the 21st National Youth Convention (NYC) was held with the theme #IWillInnovate. A total of 2700 students from 23 campuses was there with a total of 28000 students from Monday to Friday. Mr. Edward L. de Guzman introduced the guest speakers and each of them was given 50 minutes to speak. The three guest speakers shared us their inspiring success stories and how they used innovation to be where they are today.

The first guest speaker is Mr. Velden Lim, a motivational speaker and a Catholic lay preacher on weekends. With the topic "#IWillRise: The Innovator's Character". He defined innovation as "The art of continuously updating without being irrelevant". As a motivational speaker, he inspire us by telling his life story. He graduated Bachelor of Science in Business Management and even became a trainee at McDonald's. Like some of the teens nowadays, Mr. Velden is also a "pa-cool guy" who sees prayer meetings as lame and corny. But when a girl he likes invited him to attend one, that's when he fell inlove. Not with the girl, but with God. And with the gift of humor and charisma, he decided to be a motivational speaker and a lay preacher even though he graduated from Business Management. Now that's what an innovator's character must be like. To choose what he loves to do and at the same time gains more benefit rather than to stick to something he doesn't like. Everything changes. Like what the famous quote of Heraclitus states that " The only constant thing in this world is change." Mr. Velden taught us that an innovator is a Master of 3 things, change, collaboration and crisis. One of his most exact example for me is when he told us the story of how UBER, an app for transportation was created.The founder of UBER tweeted to find a business partner to work with. Ryan Graves collaborated with him and together they created UBER. They don't own any vehicle but they are now the largest transportation company in the world. Of course CRISIS will never leave them but because of their COLLABORATION and CHANGE in their self they had overcome it. That is also an example of how innovative they are. They updated the way people call for cabs without being irrelevant. The second speaker, the Father of Philippine Podcasting, is Mr. Pocholo Gonzales. He is a 37 year old voice master. He dubbed the famous commercial Babe Bibo hotdog and anime character BubuChaCha. He even gave us samples and voiced the man behind PBB house and Coco Martin. He said that "Availability is the greatest ability in this world." He is a great fan of Dr. Jose Rizal. He even traveled around the country to find statues of our hero. He said, " Do something that your future self will thank you for." The last guest speaker is Mr. Arum Gogna with the topic "#IWillRise:TheInnovator'sSpirit" He gave us an acronym RISE. R for Risks. He said that if we don't take risks, we won’t succeed. Next is I for Identity. He said that we should know who we are and what we truly want in our life. S for Study. He emphasized the importance of studying. He even told us that he graduated Magna Cum Laude in Masters of Religious Study after he graduated for six years in Engineering. The last one is E for Energy. He said that we need energy and enthusiasm to achieve our dreams and goals.