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WSA Young Innovators

Taking Action on the SDG's | Strictly for People Under the Age of 26 | Market Ready

 

The WSA Young Innovators are 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).

 

The WSA Young Innovators call is eligible for digital solutions 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

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Timeline


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Jury Process

The Young Innovators Jury process is a strictly democratic and transparent system to guarantee a fair and diverse selection of worldwide digital innovation. Once a digital solution is picked, it has to pass several stages of evaluation and assessment before it can become a Winner. The Jury Process for Young Innovators runs paralell to the WSA Award, with an online jury and a grand jury. However, the jurors are selected specifically for the Young Innovators.
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Participation and submission of digital solutions to the WSA Young Innovators

  • Taking part in the WSA Young Innovators contest is eligible through submission of a solution 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 digital solutions submitted must be under 26 years of age (born on or after January 1, 1997).
  • An especially assembled Jury will evaluate all entries.

 

Tips and tricks for your application

 

Do you have an explanatory video about your solution?

  • Please provide a short video about your solution. It should be short and explanatory, giving a good impression about what your solution 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 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 office will use this text as a basis for PR, promotion on social media or the WSA webpage.

Which local problem do you solve with your solution?

  • Give the jury a concrete summary of what issue your solution addresses and why it makes an impact.

How do you solve the problem with your solution?

  • Please provide in this field comprehensive, detailed information about your digital solution.
  • Concretely, how are you solving the described problem? Describe what your solution achieves/aims for, give details on how it works.
  • Please summarize the most important aspects of your solution in a nutshell. It should give the jurors a short overview, an easy insight into the purpose of the solution and point out the general outlay.
  • Please be precise and on point, and give a solid impression on your solution.

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.

Stage of your solution

  • Please let us know in which phase you are with your solution. Select the what fits best to your phase: established, fully-functioning, testing phase, beta-version.
  • If you chose testing or beta phase, please let us know detailed when a launch is planned, and what still needs to be done.

Competition/Comparison- Who is doing something similar?

  • Who are your competitors? What´s your comparative advantage / USP?

What is/are the target group(s) of your solution?

  • Please be as precise as possible (e.g. young mothers, children, unemployed, specific regions)
  • Who are the users?
  • What is the intended impact?

Tell us more about your team!

  • Introduce yourself and/or your team to prove you fulfill 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 solution? Who is the leading team?
  • Give some information about your bio/personal experiences and describe the structure of your team, if applicable.

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 solution? Tell the jurors what is motivating you, which problem you try to solve with your digital solution and which goals you aim to achieve.

Impact and achievements of your solution

  • What is the impact of your solution?
  • 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 one of the 17 UN Sdg(s) are you tackling with your solution?

What is the digital component of your solution?

  • Leave blank if obvious.

Does your solution involve any of the following technologies?

  • AR; VR; AI; Big Data; Blockchain; Deep learning; IoT; Wearables; 3D Printing; NLP; Robotics.

If necessary, please share some information if and how the jury can test your solution

  • 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 on how they should navigate through your solution. This is the section to pinpoint which areas/sections the jurors should have a special focus on.

Sustainability / Business model

  • How economically sustainable is your solution over the long term?
  • Share some information about your business / revenue model.

Application form template for WSA Young Innovators

Rules

Submission guidelines encompass adherence to human rights principles and exclusion of content promoting violence, fraud, racism, or discrimination. The WSA Young Innovators award is open to those under 26 from UN and UNESCO member states. Submissions are to be nominated by WSA national experts and must be fully filled, free of charge. Only launched products with local impact and alterations from previous submissions are eligible. Producers grant WSA non-commercial exploitation rights for promotional purposes. English is the official language for communication and database information. Incomplete or guideline-defying submissions may be disqualified at the jury's discretion. The jury may switch a submission to a different category, and winners are determined through the published jury process.
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The WSA Young Innovators - check out former winners!