The Africa Telecommunication Union (ATU) has launched the ATU Africa Innovation Challenge 2020.
The ATU Africa Innovation Challenge Competition on COVID-19 is designed to identify and support young African innovators who have developed mobile applications useful for benefiting the fight to contain COVID-19’ and possibly other emergency situations in Africa in the future.
According to the ATU Secretary-General Mr John OMO, a top prize winner in the competition is expected to take home a cash award of $5,000 aside from being engaged in other mentorship and partnership programmes.
Terms & Conditions
Every participant will be required to be responsive to the following terms and conditions as a minimum to be able to take part in the challenge:
i. The competition is open to all persons not born before the year 1985 and who holds the citizenship of any of the African countries that form the membership of the African Telecommunications Union.
ii. Each participant can submit one entry only.
iii. The competition runs from 18th August 2020 to 14th September 2020. All entries must be submitted within these dates.
iv. Entries will be judged by a panel of judges according to the set guidelines, the theme of the competition, novelty/ originality of the entry as well as the pragmatic promise of the entry.
v. All participants must register for the competition by completing the official registration entry form.
vi. All submissions must be the participant’s own work.
vii. All winning participants as outlined in the category of winners must agree to the subsequent use of their submitted entries for non-profit reference and promotional use only on ATU and partner communications and engagements.
viii. All participants retain full rights of their entries with the exception of winners who will surrender ONLY the right to the subsequent use of their entries for non-profit reference and promotional use only on ATU and partner communications and engagements.
ix. Employees of ATU, ICT Regulatory Bodies, and Associate Members cannot take part in the challenge.
x. There is no fee to enter the competition.
Pre-Selection Criteria
Pre-selection will take place after the deadline for the submission of the entries and will run up-to 25th September 2020. During this phase, the panel of judges will assess each submitted entry against the pre-selection award criteria and based on the following guidelines:
i. The participant fully responds to the terms and conditions outlined.
ii. The participant has been based in Africa since 14th February 2020 when the first COVID-19 case was reported in the continent
iii. The participant has certified, by ticking the relevant boxes in the registration form, that the concept of their entries is original, and copyrights have not been violated.
iv. The participant agrees to, in the eventuality of being declared prize winner; surrender ONLY the right to the subsequent use of their entries for non-profit reference and promotional use only on ATU and
partner communications and engagements.
v. The participant has read and agrees with these terms.
All participants will be notified of the results of the pre-selection of the challenge they took part in.
Evaluation & Selection Criteria
The preselected teams will proceed to the second phase of judgment that will be held from 26th September 2020 to 5th October 2020. Every entry will be evaluated based on the following criteria concepts:
i. Adherence to the set guidelines
ii. Response to the theme of the competition (the entry expresses or
interprets coherently the competition theme)
iii. Novelty/ originality of the entry (originality of the concept, innovative approach to implementation).
iv. Pragmatic promise of the entry.
v. Overall impression.
Click here for more details and apply here.
