Shawntel Nicole Nieto was selected from among 3,000 candidates worldwide to be one of the top 60 youth leaders in this year’s Global Youth Summit. The summit was held at Herzberg in Aargau, Switzerland from 16-20 July 2017 and was organized by the Global Changemakers Organization.
The goal of the Global Changemakers is to encourage and support young social activists by providing them with skills, contacts, opportunities, and a worldwide community of like-minded people. The organization is bringing about positive change in many fields, ranging from climate change to poverty and human rights.
According to Nieto, the summit helped her increase and deepen her knowledge in project management, fundraising, networking, leadership, and empathy. Aside from the skills she gained from the summit, meeting young people like her who have also done incredible things for their respective countries, gave her more inspiration and hope to continue her efforts towards advocating change.
Ms. Shawntel Nicole Nieto and Ambassador Joselito Jimeno
during the Global Changemakers reception
Nieto co-founded a community-driven business organization called the Big Mike Bike (BMB) Solutions in 2015. BMB Solutions strives to empower the marginalized and vulnerable sector by providing impactful social innovations that pave way for sustainable and enriched living conditions. The company manufactures modular pedal-powered electricity generating machines.
BMB Solutions’ Universal Off-grid Water Filtration system is an electricity-generating mechanically powered system that provides clean household and drinking water to remote areas that lack access to sources of electricity and potable water, and to communities prone to devastation during calamities. An hour of pedaling produces an output of 50 liters of potable water and 1,000 watts of electricity. Thus, its usage for a day caters to 200 families, equating to roughly 1,000 individuals.
Because of their work in BMB Solutions, Nieto received the Ateneo Socio-Civic Engagement for National Development Excellence Award in April 2017. She was also a recipient of the Philippine Business Integrity Leadership Awards in March 2017.
She is a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Management of Applied Chemistry at the Ateneo de Manila University.
Event Organizer Katherine Hermanns with some Alumnus of Global Changemakers
Ambassador Joselito Jimeno attended the reception organized by the Global Changemakers on 20 July 2017 in Zurich, to support Nieto, the only Philippine delegate in this year’s summit. END
