South Reward:---- Siddharth Jethwani a first year International Baccalaureate Diploma student at St. Dominic High School attended the IB World Student Conference (IBWSC) held at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York from the August 2-8, 2015. Under the theme ‘Creating solutions through the instinct to play’, this conference afforded IB students from all around the world come together with one goal in mind - -to develop innovative solutions to global issues, whilst simultaneously gaining knowledge, wisdom and experience. This year IBWSC received delegates from over 42 countries. Siddharth Jethwani was the first student to represent St. Dominic High School and St. Maarten. Being one of the 209 students, Jethwani believes that the overall experience was enriching and has developed him into a rather critical thinker, a trait required for IB learners.
With the set theme, creating solutions through the instinct to play, there was no doubt that the entire conference revolved around play whether it be in terms of sports, board games, or even the inspiring speakers. Students were addressed by the following speakers: Bob Mankoff, the cartoon editor for the magazine The New Yorker and Jane McGlonigal who is known for her 2012 TED Global talk explaining how games can make the world better. By engaging with these and other professionals, the students had to create a project that used the theory of human play to solve issues of global importance with their Global Action Teams. Keeping in mind the theme, creating solutions through the instinct to play, Jethwani and his fellow Global Action Team established an innovative viral challenge entitled “The JunkDunk Initiative”. Jethwani and his team aimed to engage persons of all ages in the following simple challenge: create a film of yourself creatively dunking junk into a trash can and post it to any means of social media with the hashtag #JunkDunkChallenges and nominate a minimum of three friends. This challenge seeks to improve living conditions of individuals in terms of transforming the surroundings in which we live into a cleaner, and healthier one through the instinct to play. More information on Siddharth’s Global Action Project can be found under the title 'JunkDunk Initiative' on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr.
