Are you ready to Power Up?
Since 2018 the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) has successfully executed ICT educational programmes reaching well over 2,600 students with great success.
CARIRI and Republic Bank Limited (RBL) under the Power to Make a Difference Programme (PMAD) have partnered with each other once again to continue the development of the current generation with the next wave of technological advances.
The 2022 programme called ‘Coding and Innovation Programme’ and we have more than tripled last year’s participants. To keep things interesting and exciting for this batch of students, we would like to introduce a competition aspect. The aim of the competition is to ensure that students complete the programme, keep them engaged to the end and ensure that they come away with a good understanding of the concepts that will be taught.
Target Audience:
10 – 18 years
Power Up! will be open to all the students who actively participated in the Programme (which we can track on the back end of our learning platform).
We intend to encourage at least 200 students to participate and this would be regardless of which tracks of the training that they choose.
Description
Can you identify a problem that currently exists and figure out a way to solve it using technology?
Can you solve a problem in the environment (water, land, energy, etc), the economy, the community you live in or can you come up with a better way for people to communicate and socialize with each other?
Round 1:
- Research the problem and describe how it affects people.
- Design a solution to solve the problem that incorporates technology.
- Create a digital video presentation of 5 minutes to submit for the chance to win.
Round 2:
- We will be selecting the top 10 students who will then attend a special class to learn about pretotyping (pretotyping is a way to test a product idea quickly and inexpensively by creating an extremely simple version of the solution. The purpose and intent of creating a pretotype is to validate the idea before putting in time and money building an actual “prototype”)
- These 10 students will then have 2 weeks to develop a pretotype of their solution
- On November 9th 2022, these 10 students have the opportunity to do a pitch to our judges for the chance to win our grand prize.
We will have a preliminary judging point made up of CARIRI staff members who will go through all the applications and make suggestions on the ones that should move forward. At this point, ten (10) finalists will be chosen and our team will offer a class in which they will learn about creating a pretotype of their solution for showcasing at our final event in November 2022. At this event, the 10 students will be given the opportunity to pitch their solution to the panel and winners will be selected and highlighted.
Special Lesson on Intellectual Property
How to Apply
To apply for the competition. Click the link below and fill out our competition registration form
Important Information
Next Steps
Why should you apply?
Apart from the chance to win cash prizes, you have the opportunity to put all of the concepts that you learned into practice and create something that can possibly create change. You can be the change-maker who developed the next app, game, gadget, social media platform, security device, etc.
You will have the opportunity to see your idea come to life; gain some media exposure to kick start your career while making valuable, beneficial connections. But most importantly, this is your chance to see your idea change the world!
Eligibility
Prizes
- Submission must be your own original concept or design.
- This is an individual competition. Only one prize will be awarded to the prize winner.
- Multiple submissions per individual will be accepted.
- Copying an existing solution will not be accepted. This will result in immediate termination from the Competition.
- The proposed solution must not have been commercialized previously (it should not already be in the public domain).
- Students whose immediate family members are employees of CARIRI or Republic Bank Limited are not eligible to participate.
- The solution will remain the property of the participant.
- CARIRI reserves the right to accept or reject applications.
We would suggest that this be cash prizes (which would be in the form of RBL accounts in the student’s names).
The winner will receive $5,000.00
Second place – $3,000.00
Third place – $2,000.00
Students who are placed in fourth to tenth place will receive $1,000 each
Competition Rules
To read more about the competition rules please see the link below:
Judging Criteria
Competition Timeline
Round one
The following shall be the judging criteria to be applied to the competition:
Problem Identification
- Identification of problem (20%)
- Innovation of Solution (30%)
- Use of Concepts Taught in Programme (10%)
- Incorporation of Technology and Business (10%)
- Digital Presentation (30%)
1 Sept – 30 Sept 2022:
Applications for submission will be open.
3 Oct – 14 Oct 2022:
Judging of submissions.
22 Oct 2022:
Class for the top 10 students to learn how to build a pretotype of their solution (pretotyping is a way to test a product idea quickly and inexpensively by creating an extremely simple version of the solution. The purpose and intent of creating a pretotype is to validate the idea before putting in time and money building an actual “prototype”). We also intend to ask the IP Office to do a presentation to these students so that they would be aware of the basics of intellectual property.
9 Nov 2022:
Final event
This competition has been approved by the NLCB
