New Scout badge empowers young people to lead through innovation and design thinking

4 minutes
Screenshot from training

World Scouting’s global partnership with Accenture and the World's Largest Lesson is empowering a generation of young people with innovation and creative problem-solving skills they need to be ready for life.

The Impact Innovators Challenge Badge is at the heart of this collaboration, forming a core pillar of the new LifeLeaders initiative, and aims to upskill 17,000 young people by training 330 adult leaders. These leaders will then mentor and guide young people, ensuring they gain essential competencies to lead change and build a more sustainable future.

This ambitious partnership is already making an impact. Over 100 adult leaders were trained through five online events held across multiple timezones and tailored to meet the various needs and contexts of each region. To further ensure accessibility, the sessions were delivered in English, Arabic, French, and Spanish.

The next phase seeks to train an additional 200 adult leaders, who will then go on to support thousands more young people in learning innovation and problem-solving techniques rooted in design thinking. The goal is to give young people the tools to address the world's most pressing challenges, from climate change to inequality, by fostering critical thinking and creativity.
"It was an inspiring training session that gave our planning team time to discuss aspects of both the challenge and our future national training. As the challenge urges our local groups to actively drive change in their communities, we look forward to seeing what it, together with the design thinking approach, might mean for our NSO."
Anton Nilsson
Scouterna

This partnership reflects the shared commitment of World Scouting, Accenture, and World’s Largest Lesson to youth development, recognising the power of innovation, partnerships, and technology to create a lasting and positive impact. 

Many young people today lack opportunities to develop future-focused skills through formal education. Through Scouting’s non-formal education model, young people learn by doing, and this initiative provides them with hands-on experience in social innovation and community action. By equipping them with skills that drive sustainable development, the project also contributes to Accenture’s goal of fostering active citizenship and preparing youth to become leaders and change-makers in their communities.
“Accenture is proud to partner with World Scouting to offer Scouts valuable new learning opportunities through the Impact Innovator Challenge badge, equipping them with sustainability competencies that will benefit both themselves and their communities.”
Manisha Bhattacharya
Managing Director – Global Corporate Citizenship, Accenture

Amplifying the impact through LifeLeaders

As part of World Scouting’s flagship LifeLeaders initiative and Scouts for SDGs mobilisation, this partnership is scaling up to implement the Innovator Challenge Badge in 12 countries, aiming to have 17,000 young people complete the full programme and deliver over 2,000 community service projects. 

By applying design thinking methodologies, Scouts will gain practical expertise to address local social, cultural, and economic issues aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These experiences will see youth gain hands-on experience in sustainability competencies that they can carry forward into their education, careers, and lifelong commitment to improve their communities.

Through the Scouts for SDGs, LifeLeaders initiative and the Impact Innovators Challenge Badge, Scouting is reaffirming its role in shaping the next generation of leaders - young people who are ready to create a more sustainable, inclusive, and innovative world.
"It's amazing seeing the Impact Innovators challenge come to life, with Scouts working collaboratively across five regions and 12 countries to reach thousands of Scouts. Ultimately this challenge is about building youth agency - empowering them to identify challenges and make change in their communities, using design thinking."
Jack Davies
Programme Manager, World’s Largest Lesson
Partnerships Youth Empowerment Adult Training