Deadline: July 31, 2019
Applications are open for the World Summit Awards 2019. The World Summit Awards are a unique awards system, selecting and promoting local digital innovation with high impact on improving society. Is a non-monetary award system with a focus on sustainable knowledge transfer through a worldwide network. Winners benefit not from a one-time financial reward, but a lifelong partnership and integration.
The World Summit Awards are also a nomination based award system. To participate you need to be nominated by a WSA National Expert as the best national digital application in one of the 8 categories. The nominations to WSA are possible through national contests and national Expert panel selection. Each country can only nominate one project/solution per category.
Through this high-level selection system, please be aware that every country has their own deadlines for the call. The generally communicated WSA deadline is the timeframe of the global call and communicates the last possible date of a nomination by the national expert panel.
Categories
WSA categories reflect the UN WSIS action lines and are updated regularly to meet the development of the markets. For the edition of the World Summit Awards 2019 the categories are:
- GOVERNMENT & CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT – services | open data | democratic participation
- HEALTH & WELL BEING – medical care | sport | lifestyle
- LEARNING & EDUCATION – knowledge | science | skills
- ENVIRONMENT & GREEN ENERGY – climate | sustainable resources | agriculture
- CULTURE & TOURISM – heritage | entertainment | subcultures
- SMART SETTLEMENTS & URBANIZATION – mobility |productive work | sustainable living
- BUSINESS & COMMERCE – innovative services | security | finance | marketing
- INCLUSION & EMPOWERMENT – diversity | gender | justice | human rights
Benefits
The World Summit Awards are a non-monetary award system with a focus on sustainable knowledge transfer through a worldwide network. This means that winners benefit not from a one time financial reward, but a lifelong partnership and integration.
Winners benefit:
- Invitation to the WSA Global Congress 2019 in Cascais, Portugal including:
- Pitching seminars
- 5 minute pitch session in front of an international audience during the Congress
- A program of especially crafted workshops for the winners
- Invitation to the prestigious award ceremony and Gala night
- Board and lodging for the durance of the Congress
- Eye to eye exchange with speakers, jurors and international guests
- Integration into a network of internationally recognized digital content developers
- Access to the WSA community of global experts and industry leaders in over 180 countries
- Interaction with world-renowned sponsors and partners of the WSA community
- Workshops specially shaped for the winners needs
- A videoclip highlighting the winners projects
- Special placement on WSA website, youtube channel and social media promotion
- Long-term coverage within WSA editorial channels
Nominees’ Benefits
A nomination for the World Summit Award is already a win – these are the rewards
- More coverage on your product. WSA provides nominees with press templates to help them to gain the attention of national media with support of the WSA national experts
- World Summit Award nominee seal to use on websites, social media channels and publications
- Opportunity to receive feedback from the jurors.
- Being nominated for the World Summit Award means to be the best in the respective country in one of our 8 categories. Their experience has shown that this qualification can immensely improve outreach.
Eligibility
- WSA is open to any company, organisation or individual in any UN and UNESCO member state.
- The participation in the WSA Young Innovators is restricted to any entrepreneur, company, student group or project team, where at least one of the founding members and the majority of the team is under the age of 26 (born on or after January 1, 1993) from any of the UN and UNESCO member states.
- WSA is strictly restricted to digital applications with a strong impact on society.
- Submissions for the WSA can contain mobile applications, sms based products, webpages, databases, kiosk installations, wearables, IoT etc. There is no limitation regarding the platforms or channels the projects work with.
- The projects can be max. 2 years old at the date of nomination.
- No ideas, drafts, demonstrations or concepts are accepted, all submitted projects must be market ready or already on the market.
- WSA evaluates and highlights the content, user value and local impact of digital solutions.
Application
- Taking part in the WSA is eligible by being nominated by a WSA national expert.
- The WSA national experts select in a democratic process which solutions will be nominated for each respective WSA category.
- Deadlines for national submission of applications for WSA may vary locally. National deadlines can be earlier than the communicated international WSA call deadline. WSA national experts are entitled to set independent national deadlines for application to WSA.
- Registration, including submitting project information, must be completed online via the WSA contest database in coordination with the communicated international WSA call deadline.
- Submitting a product to the evaluation and selection process does by no means entitle a producer to any benefits. There is no way of challenging this decision legally.
- Only submitted and fully filled in applications will be considered by the WSA Jury. WSA Jury may switch applications to other categories.
- Submission is free of charge.
How to Apply
- Find out who your WSA National Expert is. Then you can contact the WSA office and them will be happy to introduce you to your WSA National Expert. Once you have contacted your expert, they will go through the steps you will need to take in order to qualify for national selection with you. Some countries also offer application through a national contest.
- Your project will be reviewed and evaluated if it meets the eligibility criteria and standards of WSA. If your project is chosen to be nominated in one of the WSA categories, your WSA National Expert will enter your data in the WSA online Contest Database. Please make sure your WSA National Expert has the right contact data.
- Upon nomination, you will receive a confirmation email inviting you to complete your application. Please make sure to check your spam folder. After submitting your application you are officially enrolled in the global WSA. An especially assembled international Jury will then evaluated all nominated and completed projects and choose the 40 WSA winners and WSA Young Innovators per year.
For more information, visit World Summit Awards.
