Sydney Innovation Challenge 2024: Middle East's Sustainability Champions
Applications for the 2024 Sydney Innovation Challenge are now closed. |
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Water is a vital resource for life, health, and development. Yet, millions of people worldwide still lack access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. Sustainable Development Goal 6 aims to:
- Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
- Improve water quality by reducing pollution and minimising the release of hazardous chemicals and materials.
- Increase water-use efficiency and ensure sustainable water withdrawals.
- Protect and restore water-related ecosystems.
The University of Sydney Sustainability Strategy guides our commitment to a revitalised institutional focus on sustainability, outlining our ambitious targets for contributing to the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals.
This year's challenge aligns with the university’s commitment and invites young innovators from across the Middle East, to showcase their innovative ideas and solutions for ensuring clean water and sanitation are accessible for all.
We believe a more defined role should be given to school students to address water and sanitation challenges in the community or globally, by identifying problems and proposing evidence-based solutions, and create a campaign or educational program to raise awareness about the importance of clean water and sanitation.
Prizes
The top three winning teams will receive the following prizes:
- First prize: Apple iPad Pro (or similar) for each team member and teacher mentor
- Second prize: Lenovo Yoga Tab (or similar) for each team member and teacher mentor
- Third Prize: Samsung smartwatch (or similar) for each team member and teacher mentor
By submitting a 4 to 5-minute video, our future leaders stand to win fantastic prizes and an opportunity to showcase their innovative sustainability project to our global student and alumni community.
Winning projects will be recognised at an online awards ceremony and featured on the University’s website and social media channels.
Who is eligible?
You need to be:
- currently in Grade 11 or 12
- studying in a high school and residing in a Middle Eastern country.
How to apply?
- Register and attend: Sign up for the competition briefing sessions on Zoom.
- Form your team: Form a team of 1-3 students and a teacher mentor.
- Create a video: Develop a 4–5-minute video highlighting your innovative solution.
- Submit your application: Upload your video on YouTube and complete the application form with the required details.
First Place: Nanogen
Sabad Modi
School: GEMS Modern Academy
Second Place: The AWG (Air Water Generator)
Shakir Dossa, Rakshit Marwah and Khanish Sehgal
School: Deira International School, Dubai
Third Place: Enavra
Laiba Maqbool and Rhea Johnson
School: JSS Academy Dubai
FAQs
Application registration opens
Monday 26 August 2024
Competition information session
Monday 9 September 2024, 6 pm (AEST)
Last day for competition video submission
Sunday 13 October 2024, 11:59 pm (AEST)
Virtual Award Ceremony and winner announcement
Week of 4 Novemeber 2024
Participation is open to students studying Grade 11 or 12 at any English medium school in the Middle East (any curriculum).
Participants are to submit their entries by completing the application form.
Students need to submit their project information in the format described below:
- All project information and submissions must be in English.
- Format: Video uploaded on YouTube and link to be submitted by the stipulated deadline.
- The video should have the following mandatory information:
- Name of Project
- School name, city, and branch if any
- Name of each team member along with grade
- Email ID and contact number of each team member
- Name, email ID and contact number of the teacher mentor.
To create a video about their project, students could:
- Make the video engaging and present the message with creativity and originality.
- Follow the tips on the YouTube Help website to upload their video.
- Make sure they own the copyrights of all pictures, videos, animations, sounds, content, and any material used in the creation of their project. Any software used must be licensed and credits must be given for any material used.
- Attend the competition Information session for more details.
No, participation in the competition is free of charge.
Competition opens on Monday 26 August 2024. You need to submit your video by Sunday 13 October 2024, 11:59 pm (AEST).
- No, each participating team can enter only one project entry.
- Each school can have multiple teams participating in the competition.
- Each student can only be a part of only one participating team from the school.
Yes, students may receive help from a teacher. In such case, the teacher’s details need to be added to the application form.
Yes, but it should follow the specified guidelines of submission for the competition.
- Incomplete submissions
- Late submissions
- Lack of ownership of creative rights or infringement of copyrights of others
- Non-confirmation to the rules of the competition guidelines.
Each submission will be evaluated against the degree to which the submission meets the entry criteria and to which the ideas and actions were deemed to be innovative, transformative, and impactful. The weightage distribution is as follows:
- Relevance
Addressing the chosen areas of Impact on the chosen theme, relevance and potential = 25% weightage - Content
Quality and comprehensiveness = 25% weightage - Innovation
Originality and newness of the idea = 25% weightage - Impact
Impact on community and society = 25% weightage
An expert judging panel comprising of faculty members from the University of Sydney will score and comment on the submissions.
The submissions will be reviewed by the judging panel from 14 October to 1 November 2024.
- The results will be released through an online Results and Award Ceremony during the week of 4 November 2024.
- All teams will be notified via email by the University of Sydney and contacted directly to plan their participation at the Online Award Ceremony.
- All participating students will receive Certificates of Participation from the University of Sydney.