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IMPACT 0517: OPTIMIZING THE WAY WE WEAR AND USE CLOTHES

Youth Action Challenge (YAC) is a platform for youth to provide solutions that tackle the issues we are concerned about. Since October 2021, over 80 teams and more than 310 youths have undertaken the YAC Season 3 journey.

Cheng Ling, is a Final Year Data Science and Analytics Major student from NUS. Today she shares more about her journey in her YAC Project, Ecolo, a project to redefine the shopping experience by creating a pre-loved apparel platform that seeks to bridge the gap between consumers and businesses.

What was your role within your YAC project?

My role was to support the team in its tech development as well as working together on market research. I helped build the backbone of the product together with my other teammates.

What motivated you to join YAC?

We saw it as an opportunity to be able to network with other youth leaders and entrepreneurs, as well as to showcase and validate our ideas with the panel of judges. This would allow us to have a good check-in on how we can improve upon our ideas.

Can you share with us your experience with your YAC project?

Our YAC project has been a rather interesting journey so far. We realised, from when we first conceived the idea, that there were many unknowns. This entire journey has just been our team slowly uncovering new things about our project and the environmental landscape here in Singapore.

What are some challenges you faced while working on your YAC project?

Some challenges that we faced was coughing up the time to focus on the YAC project. All of us are still schooling and tackling internships beyond participating in YAC. So, juggling all these can be quite challenging, but I am glad that we were able to complete it.

Could you share more on how your project has a positive impact?

We believe that our project can positively impact the way people shop and think about their clothing. We believe that we are not optimising the way that we wear and use our clothes and I believe that with our platform, we can make such a vision a reality.

Were there any key takeaways or learning points from your time with YAC?

I think YAC was really an exceptional place to collaborate and link up with youths that are trying to make a difference and innovate in their various fields. One key takeaway is to always be on a lookout to connect with people you can learn from.