Life Skills are the skills that we need, to deal effectively with the challenges in everyday life, whether at school, at work or in our personal life. One could say that it is a ‘set of skills that allows us to live our life to its fullest’. A definitive list of Life Skills is something that educators, governments and employers continue to discuss and debate whether to call them Life Skills, 21st Century Skills or Soft Skills. But one thing they all agree upon is the fact that the students who are able to understand and use these skills, along with their school education, will be much better placed to take advantage of the personal and professional opportunities in future.

In today’s constantly changing environment, having Life Skills is a critical part of being able to meet the demands of daily life. The exponential changes in the global economies over the past few years have been influencing education,
employment, and personal lives. To keep up with the increasing pace of modern life, young children need to be tooled with Life Skills such as Communications, Teamwork, Leadership, Critical Thinking, Ethics , Smart Consumer Literacy, and many more. Today’s Young Citizens will have to face many new challenges over the course of their lives, with associated stress, frustration, and the need to evolve. UNICEF, UNESCO, WHO, CBSE, and many other educational and humanitarian organizations advocate transferring of Life Skills to students during the moulding stages of their life.
Research done at Harvard University in 2011, suggests that, the most effective method to impart Critical Life Skills to the young citizens is to transfer them during the Hardwiring phase of the human brain. i.e., between the age of 6 to 16 years.
Having a strong foundation in Life Skills is the Key to become a Successful Human Being and a Global Citizen of the 21st Century.

International Life Skills Olympiad(ILSO) is the World's First online initiative to test young children's Critical Life Skills Quotient, and to compare the same with the most skilled children across the globe. Through ILSO,
students of Grade III-XII from all over the world will test their Life Skills Aptitude using real-world scenario based questions.
While preparing for this highly engaging test, students will also get exposed and acquire new life skills. With students from 100+ countries participating, they all get to learn and evolve as truly global citizens.

Prevalent schooling curriculums around the world are primarily knowledge or fact-based curriculums. They do not provide the learners with much scope to assess and acquire practical Life Skills. Today’s children - the young citizens of 21st century, need a whole range of Critical Life Skills to lead and manage their future.
In fact, as per a recent news report, when asked about the Skills Gap among professionals, Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn strongly emphasized that the biggest skill gap today is in Soft Skills such as Communication, Collaboration etc.
Global initiatives like the International Life Skills Olympiad seek to address such gaps by assessing and imparting Critical Life Skills such as Leadership, Ethics, Goal Setting, Teamwork, Decision Making, Negotiations and a whole range of other 21st century skills to young citizens.