WSA Young Innovators

The WSA Young Innovators is a special call within the framework of WSA, that promotes and awards young social entrepreneurs. The WSA Young Innovators is a special recognition for young people under 26 years of age, using ICTs to take action on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

Together with the WSA winners of each year, they are honored as outstanding digital innovation with social impact.

APPLICATIONS FOR THE WSA YOUNG INNOVATORS 2020 WILL OPEN ON APRIL 15th!

HOW TO APPLY

The WSA Young Innovators Award is an open call. The participation in the WSA Young Innovators is open to any entrepreneur, company, student group or project team - at least one of the founding members and the majority of the team must be under the age of 26 (For applying in 2020, born on or after January 1, 1994).

youth taking action on the SDG's | strictly for people under 26

The WSA Young Innovators call is eligible for projects that:

Are developed by young innovators under the age of 26
Offer digital solutions to any of the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Deliver content-rich digital solutions to the user including individuals, businesses, and organisations
have a strong digital component: websites, apps, SMS based solutions, IoT, wearables etc.
are market ready or already launched on the market - no ideas or concepts are eligible

ELIGIBILITY

Eligible for young citizens of all UN member states, WSA Young Innovators is open to every start-up, social entrepreneur, NGO, student or individual!

Submissions for the WSA Young Innovators can contain all mobile and web-based projects, such as: apps, web pages, applications for wearables, kiosk installations, SMS based products, games and interactive productions. There is no limitation regarding the platforms or channels the projects work with.
All submissions have to be launched products. No drafts, ideas or unfinished projects can be accepted.

PARTICIPATION AND SUBMISSION OF PROJECTS TO THE WSA YOUNG INNOVATORS

Taking part in the WSA Young Innovators contest is eligible through submission of a project with a clear digital component to the WSA Database.
Only submitted and fully filled in applications will be considered by the WSA Young Innovators Jury.
All information entered in the application form of the WSA Database must be in English.
Main team members of the projects submitted must be under 26 years of age (born on or after January 1, 1994).
The timeline is the same as the WSA Global.
An especially assembled Jury will evaluate all entries.

WSA DATABASE SUBMISSION GUIDE FOR APPLICATIONS

The application procedure for the WSA & WSA Young Innovators requires detailed information on your product that you have to provide in the WSA Database.

Please find below some guidelines on how you should provide this information in order to make the application easier to evaluate and process and hence promote your project the best.

Once you have read the guidelines to make the application, you can find here a manual to use the database.

GENERAL GUIDELINES

Please be short and precise and make your digital project easy to understand. Avoid too long sentences and complicated technical terms.
Please fill in your application soley in ENGLISH.
Please make sure that the URL to your project/product and the e - mail you provided works!
Please be aware that an international jury is evaluating your project. E.g. if your project cannot be downloaded from the playstore in some countries, please make sure that you give enough information, provide screenshots or a comprehensive presentation for the jurors.
We advise to first do your application in a word document and then copy paste to the database for easier structuring.
WSA tries to keep the application as short as possible, hence we advise to fill in all fields, even if they are not obligatory.

WSA YOUNG INNOVATORS DATABASE MANUAL 2019

APPLICATION FORM TEMPLATE FOR WSA YOUNG INNOVATORS DATABASE 2019

THE FOLLOWING PROJECT INFORMATION MUST BE PROVIDED ON YOUR APPLICATION

DO YOU HAVE AN EXPLANATORY VIDEO ABOUT YOUR PROJECT?

Please provide a short video about your project. It should be short and explanatory, giving a good impression about what your project is about.

Jury members prefer to view a video to get a first impression and to understand what your digital innovation is about before they go into screening the text provided.

If possible, the video should be in high resolution, but can be also a simple video showing your digital innovation, or a marketing video you have.

The video is not obligatory, but we highly recommend it.

SHORT DESCRIPTION OF YOUR DIGITAL PROJECT SOLUTION

Short description of your digital solution (2-3 sentences).

This should give the jury the first impression about your digital solution, what issue does it solve and a good summary.

WSA Young Innovators office will use this text as a basis for PR, promotion on social media or the WSA webpage.

WHICH PROBLEM DO YOU SOLVE WITH YOUR PROJECT?

Please describe the concrete problem that your project is solving.

Give the jury a concrete summary of what issue your product solves, which issue it addresses and why it makes an impact.

TELL US MORE ABOUT THE LOCAL CONTEXT OF YOUR SOLUTION

WSA Young Innovators is about local content –explain why your solution is relevant locally and how it makes an impact in your country. Make sure to specify the local circumstances and help the international jury to understand why your solution is locally relevant.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE THE PROBLEM WITH YOUR PROJECT?

Concretely, how are you solving the described problem? Describe what your project achieves/aims for, give details on how it works.

Please provide in this field comprehensive, detailed information about your digital project.

Please summarize the most important aspects of your project in a nutshell. It should give the jurors a short overview about your project, give an easy insight into the purpose of the project and point out the general outlay.

Please be precise and on point, and give a solid impression on your project.

WHAT IS MOTIVATING YOU AND YOUR TEAM?

Tell the jury members what is motivating you and your team?

Please explain what you want to achieve with your digital innovation & why you are doing it. What is your motivation, what are the goals you pursue with your project? Tell the jurors what is motivating you, which problem you try to solve with your digital project and which goals you aim to achieve.

STAGE OF YOUR PROJECT

Please let us know in which phase you are with your project. Select the what fits best to your project phase.

COMPETITION/COMPARISON - WHO IS DOING SOMETHING SIMILAR?

Who are your competitors? What´s your comparative advantage / USP?
Do you know your competitors and who is doing something similar?

WHAT IS/ARE THE TARGET GROUP(S) OF YOUR PROJECT?

Please be as precise as possible, (e.g. young mothers, children, unemployed, specific regions)

Please name the target group of your project. This is important for the Jury to understand who the digital innovation is aimed at.

Who are the users?
What is the intended impact?

TELL US MORE ABOUT YOUR TEAM!

Introduce yourself and/or your team to prove you fulfil the youth criteria.

Do you have an advisory board, mentors, investors?

Who is your team? What’s your governance structure? How many people are working for your project? Who is the leading team?

This is why we would like to learn more about yourself and/or your team. Give some information about your bio/personal experiences and describe the structure of your team, if applicable.

IMPACT AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF YOUR PROJECT

What is the impact of your project?

Which milestones have you already achieved (e.g. number of costumers, users, partners, countries...)?

What is the measurable impact in your community so far?

WHICH OF THE 17 UN SDG(S) ARE YOU TACKLING WITH YOUR SOLUTION?

What are the Sustainable Development Goals your project is actively trying to solve?

SUSTAINABILITY / BUSINESS MODEL

How economically sustainable is your project over the long term?

Share some information about your business / revenue model.

WHAT IS THE DIGITAL COMPONENT OF YOUR PROJECT?

Leave blank if obvious.

DOES YOUR PROJECT INVOLVE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING TECHNOLOGIES?

AR; VR; AI; Big Data; Blockchain; Deep learning; IoT; Wearables; 3D Printing; NLP; Robotics; None of the above.

Please choose the technologies that your project contains. Select the technologies you use in your project.

IF NECESSARY, PLEASE SHARE SOME INFORMATION IF AND HOW THE JURY CAN TEST YOUR PROJECT

Please share some information if and how the jury members can test your solution. Provide login data/download links/tutorials etc.

Please provide some tips for the jurors, how they should navigate through your solution. This is the section to pinpoint which areas, sections etc. the Jurors should have a special focus on.

If necessary, please provide free access codes and installation procedure for jury members. Demo version links (working links). Demo users and passwords. Download links.

WHAT´S NEXT? WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE PLANS FOR YOUR PROJECT?

Let the jury know, what are your upcoming plans in terms of: development of your project; access to new markets; funding; new technologies or services.

HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE WSA YOUNG INNOVATORS?

e.g. webpage, social media, name of WSA Youth Ambassador

Please read the Rules and Conditions section carefully before applying. By submission of a project, producers accept the Rules and Conditions of the WSA contest!