| PHILIP PACZYNSKI says he learnt more at a three-day conference at the World Bank in Washington than in a year at university. The 21-year-old student travelled to the US capital for a conference focused on finding innovative business plans to tackle climate change. The 2011 conference was arranged in partnership with the World Bank and run by non-profit organisation Athgo. In attendance were venture capitalists who committed seed funding to the most promising proposals. Paczynski was one of 100 delegates, and the only Australian.
"It was really interesting to see so many different countries and ages, young entrepreneurs from different backgrounds, completely different people but with the same passion," he says. "We were there from 8am to 8pm and we just got into it. There was real pressure to come up with solid ideas." The winning team came up with a solar-powered backpack that could store energy for use at home. It was aimed at addressing electricity shortages in countries with an unreliable power supply. "We thought we had a pretty strong pitch but we didn't end up placing in the top three," Paczynski says."I stayed in touch with our team afterwards."
The keynote speaker was Nobel Prize winner Dr Muhammad Yunus, who is known as the father of microfinance and credited with lifting millions out of poverty in developing nations. Yunus set up the Grameen Bank, which provided small loans to Bangladeshis too poor to obtain finance from mainstream banks. The money went towards simple start-up businesses that enabled families to break the cycle of poverty.
Paczynski says it was a thrill to meet the inspiring figure.
"I'd come across the concept of microfinance in study and now I've shaken the hand of the person behind it," he says.
Paczynski is about to begin his fourth and final year at Macquarie University studying a bachelor of business and arts with a major in international business. He says he hasn't ruled out one day returning to the World Bank. "The conference was only for three days but I felt like I'd learnt a year's work," he says.
Source: Kilmeny Adie,6/2/13 SMH | 
