We know App Inventors love a good challenge. How's this one? Solv[ED] just launched its first Youth Innovation Challenge. $200K in prize funding is available for selected innovators with solutions to global challenges.
Challenge Overview
Young people hold the empathy, power, and ingenuity to solve problems, in their communities, the world, and everywhere in between. Solv[ED] is designed to spark a sense of agency in young people aged 24 and under, encouraging, inspiring, and supporting them to become problem-solvers in their communities and the world.
Millions of children are still out of school. The negative impacts of climate change continue to accelerate and shock our natural, social, and economic systems. Economic inequality is growing within and between countries. A global pandemic is exacerbating and exposing massive health and social inequities. We need everyone to roll up their sleeves and take part in addressing these challenges, even (and especially) when we feel overwhelmed. Each one of us has a role to play. And it’s never too early to get started.
Are you age 24 and under? Whoever you are, wherever you are in the world, we want to hear from you about your solution!
The Solv[ED] Youth Innovation Challenge is an opportunity for you to submit your tech-based solution that:
Improves learning opportunities and outcomes for learners across their lifetimes, from early childhood on
Supports financial and economic opportunities for all
Accelerates healthcare access and health outcomes, reducing and, ultimately, eliminating disparities in health
Takes action to combat climate change and its impacts
Addresses an unmet social, environmental, or economic need not covered in the four topics above.
Solv[ED] is open to solutions at all stages of development, and with any business model. Whether your solution is a concept, a product that is being prototyped, a service that is being piloted in your local community, or a fully operational nonprofit or for-profit organization, we want to hear from you. Your solution does need to be tech-based, and you can see more about what that means below under ‘What counts as technology.’
What counts as “technology”?
We define technology broadly as the application of science and evidence-based knowledge to the practical aims of human life. For MIT Solve and our mission, it’s important that your solution is using technology to solve a problem facing your community and/or the world and seeks to benefit people and the planet.
We welcome solutions that are using apps, SMS technology, software, AI, robots, drones, blockchain, and virtual reality. We also welcome solutions that are leveraging traditional, ancestral, as well as natural technologies and knowledge systems. That could be using centuries-old indigenous irrigation or building techniques, plant-based solutions that can reduce the effects of climate change, biodegradable sanitary pads, and so much more.
A straight forward but important question from one of my students that does not seem to be answered on your website:
How do the competition entrants know that their work/product idea will not get ripped-off?
Do the judges and others involved in the administration of the competition sign Non Disclosure Agreements?