ASCENDANCE 2021 MID-YEAR IMPACT REPORT #ONEMILLIONTEENS AboutAbout AscendanceAscendance && TheThe DianaDiana AwardAward Ascendance is a nationwide youth movement founded by 4 youngsters in 2015. Ascendance empowers today's youth by enabling them to figure out their passion and achieve holistic success while still attending school. Today, the team is managed by Gen Zs aged 10 to 20 years old. Our vision is to provide the resources, guidance and platform for the youth to discover themselves, create sustainable careers and achieve holistic success (in their Happiness, Health, Education, and Passion) while contributing to the sustainable development of society. In this journey of developing youngsters to achieve success in their goals, we are very honoured to receive The Diana Award 2019, a prestigious international award given out to young changemakers worldwide to recognize their humanitarian work and social efforts. Our gratitude to all our stakeholders such as ET Ideas, our amazing corporate partners, individual sponsors, patrons, media, government ministries, schools, teachers, friends, family and Gen Zs themselves for supporting Ascendance over the years. Together, we have impacted over 15,000+ youngsters to be future leaders. We are excited to be working together with you in 2021 to impact #OneMillionTeens THE MALAYSIAN EDUCATION BLUEPRINT 2013- 2025 THE UNITED NATIONS THE 11 SHIFTS TO TRANSFORM THE SYSTEM SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS ASCENDANCE IMPACT REPORT 1 CEO's Message Hello everyone, 2021 has been a rollercoaster of a year so far. In just 6 months, we have made strides towards our goal of Building The Future. With the Covid-19 pandemic taking us by surprise in 2020, we began this year with both uncertainty of what was ahead and excitement for the future. Having learnt how to better adapt our programs for the virtual world, 2021 saw the launch of many brand new initiatives to raise the awareness of students on an array of topics: social entrepreneurship, financial literacy, personal development, and many more, bringing experiences from some of the brightest minds and industry pioneers to students. This year also saw the launch of Ascendance's Apprenticeship program that welcomed cohorts of students who reached out to Ascendance to better understand how they can develop their skill sets, impact their communities and contribute to Ascendance's vision. Our hands-on, experiential-based program enabled students anywhere around the world to now work on active learning projects with Ascendance, with most of the events and activities featured in this report having been planned and executed by these students aged between 8 to 25 years old themselves. With a larger nationwide team, Ascendance successfully conducted our New Age Learner National Level Conference for more than 6,000 students across Malaysia in May 2021! It was indeed one of our biggest accomplishments with over 30,000 viewers tuning in. This virtual conference was only possible due to the dedication shown by our phenomenal team as well as the participation of different sectors of the community. We are also proud to announce many international partnerships that have stemmed from this year's initiatives, with international partners, individual sponsors, organizations and even colleges now working with us to bring Ascendance's vision to the wider world. These partnerships were built on the success of our conference in May and have been instrumental in Ascendance's progress towards developing our upcoming New Age Learner Conference: Building The Future with Generation Z that will take place in the second half of the year in September 2021 for over 50,000 students globally. Ascendance's vision is to impact one million teenagers over the next 5 years to be confident, driven and creative individuals with the ability to think, set and achieve their goals in every area of their lives, from their happiness, health, education and passion. With the support, love and hard work of our students, team, representatives from the national education department, and corporate partners, we have been fortunate to grow towards this vision during this short period of time. The journey ahead towards impacting #OneMillionTeens is still long and arduous, but with the support of our various partners in all segments of the community, we know that we will find a way to reach our goal. I would like to personally thank the Malaysian Ministry of Education, our Corporate Partners, Schools & Teachers, our Speakers, Mentors from ET Ideas, Ascendance's Apprentices and my amazing core team for making all of this possible. On behalf of Ascendance, I invite you to relive the amazing six months we have had through the pages of this report and hope that you enjoy reading about the impact we have created with your unwavering support. I look forward to continue working with each and every single one of you as we venture into the second half of 2021 and continue to break boundaries and change lives. Yours sincerely, Harsha Acting CEO of Ascendance ASCENDANCE IMPACT REPORT 2 Meet the Founders Ascendance'sAscendance's FoundersFounders MATHURA KANNAN, 25 HEERRAA RAVINDRAN, 22 Co-Founder & Advisor of Ascendance Co-Founder & Advisor of Ascendance Former CEO of Ascendance Former Chief Operations Officer of Junior Director of Simply Empowering Ascendance Top 10 Student Key Opinion Leader at MonStar International Singer-Songwriter Awards 2019 Audience Choice Award & Festival Top 4 Finalist in EO Global Student Director's Award (Short & Sweet Song) Entrepreneurship Awards Featured in Ahenfo Radio Denmark, Music Crowns UK, MalayMail HARSHA RAVINDRAN, 19 SANADTKUMAR GANESAN, 21 Co-Founder & Acting CEO of Ascendance Co-Founder & Chief Operations Officer Former Chief Marketing Officer of Ascendance of Ascendance Founder of StartMyName.com Former Chief Content Officer of 3 Times TEDx Speaker & International Ascendance Conference Speaker Director of WANTED Documentary Series Undergraduate Student at University of Nominated for Malaysian Digital Film Pennsylvania, USA Awards 8A+ in IGCSE & Scholarship Recipient at Nilai Student at Independent Filmmaking at International School Lights Film School, USA 9A in SPM ASCENDANCE IMPACT REPORT 3 Ascendance Management Team Ascendance'sAscendance's ManagementManagement TeamTeam VINISHYAA SUGUMAR, 18 Head of Design of Ascendance MAHALAXCME GANESAN, 18 Founder of Kickstart Art Vinishyaa Head of Communications of Head of Product Development, HaHa Ascendance Merchandise The organizer of Say What with Head of Design in StartMyName.com Ascendance Webseries Graphic Design Student Scriptwriter & Content Creator Top 10 Young Talent in MonStar Awards 2020 9A'S in PT3 Examination JARED TAN, 20 AMELYN BOEY RYOK XIN, 17 ABINAYASREE MEYAPPAN, 17 Head of Content Production, Assistant of Head of Publicity of Ascendance Ascendance Communications of Chief Executive Officer of HaHa Video Editor at ET Boost Ascendance Merchandise The organizer of Say What?! with Host of Say What with Host of Say What with Ascendance Web series Ascendance Webseries Ascendance Webseries Photographer Voice Over Recording Specialist Host/Emcee Actor Host/Emcee Featured in Oriental Daily News ASCENDANCE IMPACT REPORT 4 Ascendance's A-Team Ascendance'sAscendance's A-TeamA-Team && ApprenticeApprentice THETHETHE VIDEOVIDEOVIDEO PRODUCTIONPRODUCTIONPRODUCTION TEAMTEAMTEAM AVINAASH JEEVAN, 9 NUR AZHANA SHAFWANI SHARVIN VASANTHA Sri KL International School, BT AZREE,14 KUMAR,13 Kuala Lumpur SMK Pantai IBWS, Labuan SMK Raja Mahadi, Selangor THETHETHE MARKETINGMARKETINGMARKETING &&& SOCIALSOCIALSOCIAL MEDIAMEDIAMEDIA TEAMTEAMTEAM RYAN CHOO,18 SAI KRIPPALINI, 15 SHANJANAH SMK Desa Perdana, SMK Infant Jesus Convent, UDAIYAPPAN,15 Kuala Lumpur Johor SMK Pusat Bandar Puchong (1), Selangor ASCENDANCE IMPACT REPORT 5 Ascendance's A-Team THETHETHE BLOGS,BLOGS,BLOGS, NEWSNEWSNEWS &&& MEDIAMEDIAMEDIA TEAMTEAMTEAM VARSHINI SUNDRA,18 SARA SOPHEA BT ABDUL HAARRVIN S/O SMK Bandar Utama NAWFAR, 17 KARTHIK, 12 Damansara (3), SMK Dato’ Ahmad Maher, SJKT Appar, Kuala Lumpur Selangor Kelantan THETHETHE DESIGNDESIGNDESIGN &&& GRAPHICSGRAPHICSGRAPHICS TEAMTEAMTEAM PAVETTHERAN A/L PRAKALADHAN MOHAANNEN AHROOWE, 15 YOGHESWARAN, 13 PUVENTHIRAN,17 SMK Seri Garing, Selangor SMK Setia Alam, Selangor SMK Kota Kemuning, Selangor FEATUREDFEATUREDFEATURED ASCENDANCEASCENDANCEASCENDANCE APPRENTICEAPPRENTICEAPPRENTICE SHAIMIETHRAA BIIANCAA PIERRE RAJ, 13 PRUNEALL PIERRE RAJ, 14 PATHMANATHAN , 12 SMK Batu Unjur Klang, SMK Batu Unjur Klang, SJKT Appar, Kuala Lumpur Selangor Selangor ASCENDANCE IMPACT REPORT 6 Media Appreances Launch of TheTeenageEntrepreneur.com Starting in 2021, we are proud to have Ascendance's 18-year-old Co-Founder and Acting CEO, Harsha, launch her book, "The Makings of A Teenage Entrepreneur", along with an online guidance platform for other teenagers who aspire to pursue entrepreneurship called TheTeenageEntrepreneur.com. This book and platform aims to be a central hub of information, experiences and opportunities for any teenagers around the world to develop entrepreneurial skills. TheTeenageEntrepreneur.com serves as an online guidance platform that accompanies Harsha's book that is filled with her experiences of having run Ascendance and grown her own start-up StartMyName.com to over 400 clients in 4 continents. The launch of The Makings of A Teenage Entrepreneur and the accompanying platform was featured in more than 35 different media platforms, spreading Ascendance's new mission of impacting #OneMillionTeens within the next 5 years