The Academy tackles three key societal issues: 1) School-to-work transition; 2) Youth development and employment; 3) Social inclusion. Through specially designed programs, we aim to - Equip educational institutions worldwide to facilitate school-to-work transition. - Increase the success rate of graduate employment. - Expose students to networks that provide opportunities for internships, further development and employment. - Provide students and teachers with opportunities for “hands-on” collaboration with international virtual teams from other cultures, using new digital methods. - Give opportunities to students to start their career by adding practical experience to the academic curriculum. - Involve youth into being active global citizens.

The scope and deliverables of each initiative are discussed and agreed between the partners, in an inclusive process of co-creation, facilitated by the Think Tank AlterContacts to produce a project/program document. Each partner decides the extent of the implementation, the type of resources and the amount of effort they are willing to dedicate. Any change in scope or contingency requires a meeting with the partners involved in the potential changes, to assess the impact and review or change the project document. Once the project document is complete with scope, calendar, activities, resources, risks, and deliverables, the Leader institution can start coordinating the local implementation. When available and depending on the type of program, Think Tank AlterContacts will provide handbooks with guidelines or existing templates that can be shared with the partners to assure the quality of the execution is consistent across geographies and different partnerships. The first program is the Lockdown Economy Challenge: a cross-university competition to involve students in helping small businesses overcome the pandemic. Based on interviews with small businesses worldwide about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that were recorded from June 2020 to March 2021 (in the framework of the SDG Accelerated Action “Lockdown Economy” #SDGaction36773), students will receive a list of case studies. Interdisciplinary teams of students choose one case study to analyze from the position of “What would you do if you were the owner?” Submitted proposals will be judged by University representatives, Think Tank AlterContacts, and the business itself. Winning teams will get to implement their proposal with the business they analyzed. Through this program, students will get a new perspective on challenges faced by the companies during the pandemic. It will allow them to develop their vision and detect new opportunities. They will be able to take a leading role in creating an innovative solution to meet the needs of society during these unprecedented times; train their critical and design thinking skills to analyze, perform and inspire in an ever-increasing volatile, uncertain, and complex business environment; work with real business cases, hand in hand with entrepreneurs.

Across the globe, young people are being disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the world of work. None of the courses they had, prepared them for this crisis. Recent graduates are struggling to enter the labour market. The current situation calls for more efficient and dynamic education. We want to give young people opportunities to develop their potential to shape the future of the world. The programs that will be carried out with our partner universities will allow us to adapt the education systems to support digital skills and educational and vocational training for young people. To help them realize their full potential by improving the quality and efficiency of education and training; promoting active citizenship; enhancing creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Young people will acquire digital literacy skills, entrepreneurial and transversal skills and will learn how to apply ICT to address challenges facing society. These programs will give young people higher chances of entering the labour market. They will provide them with a stronger foundation and practical skills required in the modern world.

The initiative is organized and coordinated by the Global Think Tank for Sustainable Development AlterContacts and its co-founders Julia Skupchenko and Massimo Mercuri. All programs will be carried out through collaboration with local and regional partners, primarily universities and schools. The think tank plays the role of integrator, connecting schools, universities and facilitating the social innovation involving partners from a wide network of experts in the entrepreneurial and academic world. It may involve local foundations, NGOs, government institutions, private organizations, or associations. Each engagement is agreed upon in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the education institution that becomes the “Leader” of the program. The Leader acts as the local coordinator for the actions and deliverables of the local partners. AlterContacts Academy provides 1) The facilitation of a transparent, inclusive, and ethical framework. 2) Registration of the local working groups and reports under the SDG partnership guidelines. 3) One person who acts as a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) for communication and manages access to the resources and documents made available by all the programs and initiatives that AlterContacts executes worldwide. 4) Case studies, recorded video, and curated articles from the SDG Accelerated Action “Lockdown Economy” #SDGaction36773. 5) Access to the global network of collaborators, researchers, experts, and volunteers. 6) Possibilities to propagate and disseminate the deliverables of the program in public (social) or private network channels, as agreed with each partner beforehand. | Each local partner institution provides 1) A single point of contact (SPOC) who is responsible to manage the communication between the local education institution and Altercontacts. 2) A coordinator for the activities performed by the partner’s volunteering students or employees, and deals with the administration of any eventual in-house resources or assets. 3) In the case of a multistakeholder program, the Leader institution becomes the SPOC between AlterContacts and all other partners, except for pre-agreed tasks of the program. 4) Availability of the deliverables as agreed in the project charter. 5) For programs that include multiple projects, there must be a SPOC per project to assure a single line of communication.

Anahuac Mayab University (Mexico), Universidad Tecnológica del Poniente (Mexico), Epoka University (Albania), Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands), "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati (Romania), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana