During the five weekends, participants of the Future Leaders Academy had the chance to meet and hear from a wide range of speakers, including the former Prime Minister of the Republic of Latvia Krišjānis Kariņš, the former President of Latvia Valdis Zatlers, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Baiba Braže, the Minister of Justice Inese Lībiņa Egnere, the Minister of Defence Andris Sprūds, President of the Bank of Latvia Mārtiņš Kazāks, President of the Constitutional Court of Latvia Irēna Kucina, Head of the Chancery of the President of Latvia Gunda Reire, Ambassador of Sweden to Latvia Daniel Olsson, Swedish defence attaché Gert Burgstaller, Anti-corruption champion and Riga City Council member Inese Voika, Chief Economist of Swedbank Līva Zorgenfreija, SEB Bank Board member Kārlis Danēvičs, Market Manager at IKEA Latvia Pēteris Grīnbergs, SSE Riga Alumni and Founder of ERDA & Kim? Zane Čulkstēna, and others.

In addition, participants attended trainings on pitch presentations from Vanda Dauksta, argumentation from Mārtiņš Hiršs, storytelling from Dāvis Golds, and media interviews from Ilze Dobele.

This year former programme Alumni were involved in sharing their skills and stories. A values workshop was lead by Izolde Gūtmane, LinkedIn utilisation session by Olga Zorova, Dāniels Liecis talked about implementing processes and seeking out mentors to achieve results, and Kristians Hrgetic Vītols described his path from design to defence.

Throughout the five weekends, participants also worked in teams of two to identify a problem hindering Latvia’s future development and propose a creative solution. At the end of the programme, they had the opportunity to present their ideas to a jury, and here are the results!

  • The winning team asked: how can we involve the 50+ year olds in technology and economic innovation? Dace Gribuste and Ričards Oļševskis won first place with their presentation titled “Empowering the Silver Economy: Latvia’s First Senior Innovation Hub”.
  • Second place was awarded to Evelīna Jansone and Jaroslavs Benedikts Boļšakovs for their idea titled “Step Up, Latvia! A National App-Powered Step Competition” for which they had already created a prototype. The app would allow for physical activity competitions between individuals at companies or education establishments.
  • Third place went to Maija Tiva Hilla and Miks Dzedons, who proposed to tackle financial illiteracy through an education course aimed at 12th graders titled “Empowering Latvia’s Youth: Financial Literary as Key to Independence”.  

It has been an incredible journey with this year’s participants!