Call for Applications: YOTA Youth Innovation Challenge 2022 for Young Africans

The Challenge aims to foster and nurture catalytic youth-led solutions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Challenge forms part of activities under the Africa Youth Partnership to Advocate an Equitable Recovery from the COVID-19 Pandemic.

YOTA (Youth Opportunity & Transformation in Africa) is supporting young innovators to drive change and contribute to post-pandemic recovery efforts through grassroots innovations and social action. This is to alleviate the negative consequences of the pandemic on young people and their communities while elevating the ideas, ingenuity, and creativity of young innovators working to address the effects of the global health crisis.

They are looking for the most talented young innovators from Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria to showcase their ideas on and proposed solutions for addressing the many challenges posed to the continent by the COVID-19 pandemic. They want to support youth innovation for the advancement of inclusive and equitable post-pandemic recovery efforts.

Challenge Sectors

The thematic focus of the Youth Innovation Challenge cuts across several sectors, as long as a direct connection can be made to post-pandemic recovery potential. In particular, we are looking for youth-led solutions that address challenges in one or more of the following themes:

• Agriculture and Fisheries
• Biodiversity
• Digitalisation, AI, and Emerging Technologies
• Education and Skills
• Employment
• Energy and Industry
• Finance, Trade, and International Investment
• Gender
• Governance and Politics
• Health and Wellbeing, including Vaccines
• Housing and Infrastructure Development
• Local and Regional Development
• Migration
• Mobility and Transport
• Tourism

Awards

Participants of the Youth Innovation Challenge stand the chance of receiving a mix of support to enable them to implement their solutions, including:

• Up to $5,000 USD of funding per project.
• Business development advice from top experts in the field of innovation and human-centered design.
• Access to carefully curated tools and resources to support the full cycle of youth-led innovation and human-centered design.
• Opportunity to become part of a growing community of young African innovators for ongoing learning, sharing, and networking.
• Opportunity to be supported to showcase solutions across various international multi-stakeholder platforms, processes, and convenings before the end of 2022.

Eligibility

Open to:

• An individual young person between the age of 18 and 35; or an informal group of young people, or a local youth- or women-led organization or company (both non-profit or for-profit are welcome); female candidates or teams with predominantly female members are particularly encouraged to apply.
• Nationals of Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria who are resident in their countries or based in the diaspora.
• Persons who are passionate about using their skills to design innovative solutions to promote addressing the many socio-economic challenges posed to your country by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Truly innovative and impactful ideas or solutions that have the potential to change lives in a sustainable way.

Judging Criteria

• Fit to scope– Solution contributes to COVID-19 recovery efforts with a potential to disrupt
• Business model – Solution clearly demonstrates a viable business model and scope for revenue generation
• Sustainability – Solution is financially and operationally viable beyond the initial investment
• Feasibility – Solution is viable and in the right direction
• Value – Solution has a strong value proposition
• Creativity – Solution is clearly an innovative approach to addressing the target challenge
• Human centered – Solution is based on feedback from end users in order to solve a real problem for the community
• Scalability – Solution can be easily scaled up and replicated beyond the initial scope

How To Apply

The First Round submissions deadline is July 29, 2022. Announcement of shortlisted submissions will be made on August 12, 2022.

Click Here To Apply

For more information, visit YOTA Youth Innovation Challenge

Application Deadline: July 29, 2022

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