YuMi Wins Shared Value Award 2018

Across the Asia Pacific inspiring and impactful shared value initiatives were selected as finalist for the Shared Value Awards 2018.

We are so excited to share that last week from that fantastic group, YuMi Tourism Partners, a joint initiative between TDi, Carnival Australia and The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, won a shared value award in the category Shared Value Project by an Organisation or Collaboration.

This partnership is aptly named YuMi which commonly means “together” in Pacific Bislama and Pidgin languages. Partnership is imbedded at every level of the program which has been a powerful example of what can be achieved through true collaboration.

YuMi exists to fast-track the development of local tourism entrepreneurs and their access to customers, and was developed as a response to two big questions we found ourselves and our partners asking:

  1. How can we better support local tourism businesses to create authentic and exciting experiences for tourists from a developed market?
  2. How can Carnival Australia build on and further deepen the 80-year relationship they’ve created with Pacific Island communities?

Through innovative design and stakeholder consultations together we came up with a tailored accelerator program that couples product development, business building and customer testing with one-on-one mentoring. There are two key takeaways from the program so far that have proven essential to the success of YuMi, which are:

  1. Getting the local entrepreneurs face-to-face with customers to develop and test their product, through a day on a cruise ship.
  2. Carnival Australia’s centrality to the process, as the market access partner.

In order for a project to win the category of shared value by an organisation or collaboration, it needed to show clear economic benefits while addressing a significant social issue, strong measurement, opportunity for scalability, and contribution to the shared value community, as well knowledge sharing.

Results from the first two ports, out of three, where the accelerator and one-on-one mentoring from TDi are well under way are already overwhelmingly positive.

The entrepreneurs we have worked with have told us how needed this program is and that it has developed their confidence and business skills substantially. Along with this we are also projecting $500,000 per port in additional annual revenues for the businesses that will be contracted.

Our CEO Annie, collected the award with Sandy Olsen from Carnival Australia.

“YuMi is a one-of-a-kind initiative that proves that we can both create unique ways to undertake international development in places such as the Pacific, while leveraging all that is good in the private sector.” – Anthea Smits, CEO, TDi

Once the final port has been delivered we will complete a thorough measurement and program analysis both to determine if this project model can be replicated in other ports around the world and to let you know what all we have learnt – so stay tuned!

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The Difference Incubator is an Australian nonprofit that exists to awaken the possibility of both doing good and making money through tailored business consulting and accelerator programs. Since founding in 2008, TDi has worked with over 400+ mission-driven enterprises to build sustainable mission-driven enterprises both here in Australian and in the Pacific.

Want to hear from our team on how we did it, and our key takeaways from the project so far? Join us for a FB Live Q&A at 12:30pm (AEST) on 14th November 2018, or send us an email for a coffee catchup at info@tdi.org.au with the title: YuMi Coffee Catchup.

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