Rotary Club of Panvel Midtown took up a novel initiative to conduct under RYLA. The club created a platform in Panvel to motivate, encourage and reward ideas and innovations generating out of young minds for addressing Societal Problems in the areas of health, primary and rural education, sports, traffic, sound and air pollution, sanitation and hygiene, economic development of rural communities, water conservation and alternate energy sources. Collectively such ideas fall under the category of ‘Social Innovations’ and hence the name of the initiative came to be as “Rotary Club of Panvel Midtown’s Young Social Innovator Awards”. This event was conducted in association with Panvel Municipal Corporation. The program was conducted in 2 parts. In the first part, the core team reached out to over 36 colleges and institutes in and around Panvel. The team explained the concept to the teaching fraternity and advised them to guide the students for this initiative. Through this exercise alone, the club could reach out to thousands of students, teachers, principals and staff members garnering a very positive public image of Rotary. This, in fact, came out as an incidental benefit of the entire initiative. Almost 100 students registered via the online link and 25 submitted their White Papers detailing their innovative idea. Of these 25 white papers, 7 were shortlisted by the Club’s internal panel. Presentations of these 7 shortlisted whitepapers were held on 17th February morning session at Pillai College, Panvel. An expert panel comprising of 5 panelists of diverse streams, was instituted to pick up the top 3 presentations. This was followed by the Award Ceremony of the competition on the same day in the evening, at Adya Krantiveer Vasudev Balwant Phadke Natyagruha. For the benefit of students and Young Entrepreneurs, 2 keynote speeches were organized at the event. Mr.Avinash Dharmadhikari, ex-IAS and founder of Chanakya Parivar, motivated the students on how to pick the right career path and Dr. Kaustubh Dhargalkar, Design Thinking Coach, Innovation Consultant, Startup Evangelist and TEDx Speaker shared his insights on finding opportunities for innovations through observations, and some mantras on converting an idea into a successful venture. To motivate and inspire the students, the Top 3 student groups were awarded with Trophies, certificates and a cash prize as well. This Ceremony was attended by over 400 students, parents and teachers. Rotary Club of Panvel Midtown remains committed to the empowerment of Youth. The Club, under RYLA, will be conducting many such innovative campaigns for students and youngsters in the years to come.