Camilla Hellemann Sørensen has attended several youth leadership summits, where young talents meet to find sustainable solutions for the pressing issues, the world faces. To Camilla, these networks are crucial to make an impact that matters.
“To me, sustainability is an extremely important field,” Camilla Hellemann Sørensen says.
“But it is extremely difficult to raise alone as an individual.”
A few months ago, she participated in the ‘One Young World’ summit in The Hague together with 2,000 other young talents from around the world. They were gathered to address climate changes, plastic in the oceans, violation of human rights and other pressing issues, the world faces.
The organization One Young World organizes the summit with the goal of empowering the delegates to make lasting connections and to share innovative solutions to the most pressing global challenges.
This year’s theme was ‘build a better world’, and to Camilla Hellemann Sørensen, that means being bold and doing things differently:
“Of course we don’t need to invent new technologies, but we need to re-think existing practices and use existing technologies in new ways instead of choosing the easy way out,” Camilla Hellemann Sørensen says.
“To do so, partnerships across industries and borders are crucial, because when people come together and share ideas, we see things in a new perspective.”
ABOUT THE ONE YOUNG WORLD SUMMIT
One Young World was founded in 2009 as a UK-based charity that gathers together young leaders from around the world at the yearly summit called ‘One Young World Summit’. At the summit delegates are joined by a line-up of Counsellors from some of the world’s largest enterprises and organizations. The goal is to empower the delegates to make lasting connections to find solutions to some of the biggest challenges, the world faces.
Inspiration from around the world
At Deloitte, Camilla Hellemann Sørensen works with risk management, anti-corruption and sustainability. She helps companies make risk-informed decisions, that strengthen their reputation and legitimacy. And she got lots of new perspectives from the summit that she can actively use in her daily work.
“I am able to use all the information, that I gathered, in the interaction with clients, and it is also a source of inspiration to learn, how we can make a sustainable impact at Deloitte,” Camilla Hellemann Sørensen says.
Besides ‘One Young World’, Camilla Hellemann Sørensen participated in UNLEASH; an innovation lab that gathers 1,000 young talents to find sustainable solutions to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
“The amazing thing about such forums is that people from all over the world come together. They represent a lot of stakeholders, from startups and academics to large global enterprises and people from the creative communities,” she says.
ABOUT UNLEASH
UNLEASH is a global innovation lab, gathering 1,000 young talents annually to collaborate on solutions to meet the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Deloitte is leading innovating partner. UNLEASH took place in Denmark in 2017 and in Singapore in 2018.
At the summits Camilla Hellemann Sørensen and the other delegates were joined by a line-up of Counsellors. At ‘One Young World’ that included former UK prime minister Gordon Brown, the Unilever CEO Paul Polman and the musician and political activist Bob Geldorf. However, inspiration comes just as much from the other delegates.
“It is so inspiring that people are different. I learn something from each conversation, I have with the other delegates. The silo mindset is killed, and every new idea is welcome,” Camilla Hellemann Sørensen says.
New ideas come to life
After each summit, the delegates are encouraged to work on their own initiatives or utilize the power of networks to join those initiatives already in existence. Many delegates return to their companies eager for creating a change from within.
Camilla Hellemann Søresen meets regularly with other UNLEASH delegates from Denmark to stay in touch and to keep inspiring each other.
“We all share a common interest in sustainability, and we use knowledge sharing to assess if we can create a new solution together. In the end, I believe that co-creation will make the biggest impact,” she says.
Of course we can all eat less meat, take fewer flights and change our light bulbs to LED, but to Camilla Hellemann Sørensen it is not enough just to do less harm. She wants to make a real impact on areas such as climate, corruption, education and human rights.
“To solve these issues, it is crucial that people corporate across industries and borders. UNLEASH and One Young World make that possible. As the organizers said at the One Young World Summit: ‘Never to young to lead, never to old to learn’.”
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