Invitation to Play
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The Seed Idea
There are 4 stages you need to follow before entering the ICT Youth Challenge 2009:
1. Put together a team
Before you enter the competition you need to put together your team of between 3-5 people. Your team can be made up of friends, family, school mates or pretty much anyone you want…………as long as they are under 20 years old! In previous years we have had applications from schools, scouts, cubs, army cadets, families, colleges and pretty much any other youth groups you can think of.
2. Get your adult
Each team entering the competition needs to have an adult mentor. This is someone that will support you throughout the competition and provide assistance when you need it e.g. travel to and from events and looking after your team if you get to the HotHouse residential stage of the competition. Your adult mentor can be a teacher, parent or youth group leader but before you and your team nominate someone, make sure you ask them first!
If your adult mentor would like further information on what is expected of them get them to visit the website and click here to visit the “Adult Mentors” page, or even better, visit this page yourself and print it off for them to read and retain for future reference.
3. Come up with your idea
This part of the application stage is the most important! Your idea is what we are interested in and that’s what makes it so important. So in a nutshell were looking for:
Innovative ideas that either involves developing new technologies or that use existing technologies, in a way that has never been done before.
You don’t need to be a computer whiz to enter this competition, in fact it is probably better if your not! You just need to come up with an idea for a product or a service that uses ICT in a way it’s never been used before. So forget websites that sell clothes and solar powered torches and think about something totally unique that has never been done before, or something that has been done already but you could make better!
So get brainstorming* and submit your ideas online before the 19th December 2008.
*If your not sure how to ‘Brainstorm’ click here for some ideas on how to come up with that winning idea.
4. Submit your application
So now that you have your team, you have your adult mentor and have got the winning idea you need to enter the competition. Entering the competition is simple! You simply click here to Enter your idea now page to visit our ‘Enter your idea now’ page and fill in the application form. We want you to tell us about you and your idea, who would buy it, what makes it different from anything that exists at the moment and how your idea will change peoples lives? This shouldn’t take you more than 5 minutes.
What happens next?
Once your idea has been submitted it will be sent to our panel of judges. The judges will mark all of the applications and you will hear whether or not you have been successful in progressing to the next stage around the 9th January 2009.
The First Pitch
If your team is one of the 30 selected to progress from The Seed Idea stage to the First Pitch you will know 9th January 2009. That will give you nearly 3 weeks to prepare your 3 minute presentation to be delivered to the competition judges, by video conference, on Tuesday 27th January 2009. Each team will have only 3 minutes to convince the judges that there idea is what they have been looking for. Teams presenting at this stage will be issued with a ‘First Pitch’ brief on the 9th January 2009 with more information on how to make the all important 3 minutes count.
The Forum
From the First Pitch stage a minimum of 15 teams will be selected to attend a full day event to develop your business ideas in partnership with some of the countries leading ICT and business development experts. At this stage you will look at your product design, marketing, technical specification and Intellectual Property Rights.
The event culminates in teams participating in a 20 minute interview with judges whereby the attempt to ‘sell’ their ideas to the judges and convince them that you have a well developed understanding of where your product is going.
The Hot House
The final event of the competition is the HotHouse where the 6 teams chosen from the Forum stage are invited to a week long residential course. At the HotHouse teams will take their ideas a step closer to becoming a commercial reality and will spend time developing their ideas in partnership with our experts. But the HotHouse is not all about work and teams who have reached this stage in previous years have enjoyed the outdoor activities on offer e.g. Raft building, mountain boarding, abseiling, computer games and much more.
2009 Competition Dates
The Seed Idea
Competition opens for applications – 22nd September 2008
Deadline for all competition entries - 19th December 2008
The First Pitch
Teams progressing form the Seed Idea stage to the First Pitch stage will be notified from - 8th January 2009
The First Pitch is due to take place on Tuesday 27th January 2009*
The Forum
The Forum is due to take place on 17th March 2009*
Teams progressing from the Forum to the HotHouse stage will be notified on 18th March 2009
The HotHouse
The HotHouse event is due to take place between Monday 29th June – Friday 3rd July 2009
*These dates have yet to be confirmed. Please keep checking the site for updates.
For further information please contact 08700-636333 or teams@youth-challenge.co.uk
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