Deadline: December 11, 2014
The Standard Bank of South Africa invites entries for the Water4Africa Challenge on “Clean Drinking Water for Africa”. The Challenge seeks solutions to make clean drinking water affordable and reliable to all Africans. Clean water is a human right. But millions across Africa don’t have it. With your help, we can fix this! The lack of clean drinking water takes lives, suppresses Africa’s growth, and keeps kids out of school.
Do something. Don’t sit this one out. R250,000 in prizes!
Apply your knowledge and make a difference. You have the idea to make clean drinking water affordable and reliable to all Africans. Using your preferred medium (text, design, animation, Powerpoint, short video), submit as many ideas as you can on how to bring clean water to communities in Africa with little to no access to clean water.
What’s the situation today? A lack of clean drinking water has had dire consequences for many Africans:
- Lack of clean water affects 334 million people living in Sub-Saharan Africa (more than the population of the United States). (one.org)
- 3.4 million people worldwide die each year from water-related disease. (water.org)
- The World Heath Organization estimates that 320 million productive working days and 443 million school days are lost each year because of lack of clean water. (WHO)
- Clean water and poor sanitation are inextricably connected; lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every four hours. (water.org)
Categories
How can you help? Consider these types of solutions for inspiration:
- Education: How can we educate communities so they embrace clean water solutions?
- Groundwater: How can we give communities long-term access to groundwater?
- Sanitation: How can we improve access to clean water by improving sanitation?
- Purification: How can we provide people simple water treatment solutions?
- Filtration: How can we turn available water into drinkable water through filtration?
- Solar: How can we leverage the power of the sun to purify water?
- Other: Any other ways to address the main campaign topic?
Prizes
A total of R250,000 will be awarded to the most promising proposals, as follows:
- Early stage (Concept) for New but promising concepts – 5 prizes of R20,000 each
- Mid-stage (Proven) for Tested solutions, ready for first deployment – 1 prize of R50,000
- Late-stage (Scale) for Deployed solutions, ready for scale – 1 prize of R100,000
In addition, $2,500 (about 25 prizes of R1,000 each) will be awarded in Spot Prizes during the Idea Generation phase.
Spot prizes will include Early Bird, Most Constructive comments, Most Influential, Most Improved idea.
Eligibility
The Clean Drinking Water for Africa (“Campaign”) is open to companies; educational institutes; non-government organizations; and individuals who, as of the last day of the month prior to the date of entry, are the age of majority in their place of residence (eighteen (18) in most countries; nineteen (19) through twenty-one (21) in a select few.
Criteria
Expert moderator criteria
- Feasibility: Is this idea technically feasible within a one-year time frame?
- Scalability: How easily could this idea be scaled to reach more people?
- Impact: How many people will this solution impact?
Jury criteria: above plus
- Cost/Value: Is the idea low in cost relative to the impact it will make?
- Overall innovativeness: Does this idea exist or is it a completely new innovation?
Guidelines
- The ideas text must be in English.
- If the idea contains a visualization, it must be an electronic file no larger than 20 MB, in one of the following formats:
- · Images: .jpg/.jpeg, .gif, .bmp, .png
- · Microsoft Office: doc, docx ppt, pptx, pps, ppsx xls, xlsx, PDF: pdf, ps
- · Open Office: odt, odp, sxw, sxi, etc.
- · Text: txt, rtf
- Videos must be under 3 minutes and be uploaded to YouTube, with the YouTube link embedded in the Idea Entry.
- Ideas may be submitted individually or by teams; teams are limited to a maximum of 8 members.
How to Register
- Register at http://www.standardbank.co.za/water4africa
- Submit your idea on the platform
- The community can vote and comment on your idea and you can comment, add to and vote on their ideas.
For more information, visit Water4Africa Challenge.
