Have you ever imagined talking about social innovation with numerous people around the globe and solving international problems in your daily life? Asia Pacific Youth Exchange (APYE) was founded in 2016 with the purpose of encouraging the youth to respond to the global needs in localized Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) initiatives, having been held in the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. With multiple stakeholders, delegates can learn how to cope with local communities and act out SDGs related projects that can bring impact to the society. By expanding its scope, APYE was ready to implement its program in India. International young leaders participated in the 1st APYE India held in Mizoram, a state in northeastern India, from January 28 to February 5, 2021. The theme of the 1st APYE India was “Entrepreneurship and SDGs under Sustainable Bio-Economy” and it was the first time ever to try out the mixture model between online and offline (on-off mix) to overcome physical constraints caused by COVID-19. The 1st APYE India kept up to utilize the features of the original program, designating the 
youth in Mizoram as a team leader or facilitator and virtualizing projects online for other delegates. According to an interview with one of the APYE managers, she mentioned “What I expect most for students participating in this program is that they experience the SDGs spirit, global social entrepreneurship, and the chance to develop themselves as social innovators even in this pandemic.” In addition to this, she hoped that the youth can extend various competencies such as communication skills, leadership, design thinking, and project execution skills. The 1st APYE India, as a program that assembles various foreign youths from different cultural and social backgrounds to solve global community problems, has become a stepping stone for young people in the Asia Pacific region including Hanyang University students. Rather than being a one-off activity, APYE is a sustainable activity that allows the youth to contribute to the development of their region in a sustainable way even after they go back home. Therefore, it would be better to keep a lot of attention to APYE and its upcoming events.

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