On February 8th, the United Nations Foundation, Shell, Tribal Brands and members of the entertainment industry came together to celebrate the launch of mPowering Action, a first-of-its-kind worldwide movement and mobile platform designed to inspire, empower and motivate a generation of global citizens to take positive action in their communities, for their families and for themselves.
The initiative was launched at a star-studded event during Grammy Week in Los Angeles, and featured a special appearance by the platform’s first Producer-In-Residence and super-producer Timbaland as well as performances by actor and singer Justin Timberlake, Avicii, Estelle and Indonesian artist, Agnes Monica who alongside Timbaland made the U.S. debut of the first song in support of the initiative.
A Focus on Global Youth
Today, people under 25 make up 43 percent of the world’s population – in some countries, that number is as high as 70 percent. This amounts to nearly 4 billion young people living on the brink of the greatest technological advances and human progress while also surrounded by intractable public health epidemics, record jobless rates, outdated education systems and historic pressures on the planet’s resources.
This generation of millennials are social media savvy and eager to help create real-world change, and for the first time in history, technology has the ability to facilitate change in the palm of their hands.
mPowering Action
mPowering Action incentivizes youth to learn and engage through two popular mediums: the universal language of music and the ubiquity of the mobile phone. Bringing together A-list artists from around the world, a mobile application was developed by Tribal Brands that will offer young people everywhere exclusive content from globally recognized artists, as well as athletes and other celebrities, in exchange for a story or personal commitment to take action in one of five issue areas including: Education; Health; Reproductive and Sexual Rights; Energy Scarcity and Resource Management; and Jobs.
Through the mPowering Action mobile application, young people will be able to explore and articulate the issues that are important to them, search a global database of nonprofit organizations to get involved with, find local meetings and/or events that focus on issues relevant to them and connect with like-minded peers throughout the world.
UN Foundation and Shell – Leading the Way
By working with organizations like the UN Foundation and Shell, mPowering Action aims to invite people into this process, providing a cross-sector approach to mobilizing 100 million young people to address some of the most pertinent development and resource management issues of our time. As part of the launch event, the UN Foundation and Shell (mPowering Action’s lead corporate partner) expressed a call-to-action to the global nonprofit, entertainment and corporate communities to learn more about the initiative and join efforts to help reach billions of youth around the world, encouraging them to take part in creating a better future for themselves and their communities.
For more information about the platform, please visit mPoweringAction and follow the initiative on Facebook and Twitter.
