FutureU

• Learn how to invent a career working in climate action and sustainability
• Practice your future career to develop relevant knowledge, skills, networks and experiences that will prepare you for success after graduation
• Expand your creativity by working on something real that can make an impact in your community

1. Explore the UN Sustainable Development Goals to identify an area that interests you. Research that development goal to explore how it contributes to climate change mitigation or resolution.
2. Identify a local researcher, not-for-profit, business or organization in Calgary that is working on one of these problems. Meet with them to learn about their work and the challenges they see to making progress. Use those insights to pick a challenge you would like to work on for your Ideas2Action project.
3. How could you use $2000 to help solve a real problem? Design an innovation project that uses your knowledge, skills and network to work on the challenge you identified. The project you develop may be created in partnership with the organization, or it can be developed as your own initiative independent of the group you meet with.
4. Complete the application form by 4pm on March 24, 2020 to enter the competition
5. Successful applicants will be notified by March 31, 2020

The Ideas2Action Funding Contest is open to any University of Calgary student (undergraduate or graduate). It is encouraged that students enter in teams with one person being the main contact. The award will be distributed equally amongst team members.

There is $10,000 total available to be awarded, and applicants are eligible to win one award of up to $2000 per project. Successful applications will receive cash prizes in early April 2020 via direct deposit. Funds will be distributed evenly amongst students on the team.

From students:

• Why did you choose this problem to work on? Demonstrate that you have been curious about the problem and have taken the time to learn about it.
• How do you plan to take action? Show us how you will learn by doing. It doesn’t have to be the biggest project, and it doesn’t have to solve the deepest problems.
• What do you hope to learn? Tell us about your learning journey so far and how this will help you take the next step.

In the projects:

• Projects must address a problem that relates to one of the Sustainable Development Goals
• Projects must incorporate an element of innovation and/or creativity. This could include a new way to look at the problem, a novel approach to your solution, or incorporating new stakeholder groups that historically haven’t been included.
• A list of goals and milestones the students hopes to achieve.
• A cohesive and clear budget that demonstrates how the $2000 will be used to deliver their project

Submissions will be judged by a panel of reviewers chosen by the competition coordinator. The decisions of the panel on all matters are final and not open to appeal. If the competition coordinator, in their sole discretion, deems that an insufficient quantity or quality of applications have been received, the competition coordinator reserves the right not to award any prizes and terminate the competition.

Submissions that meet all eligibility criteria will be judged as follows:

1. 30% of the scoring will be allotted to the potential impact of the learning experience that the project will provide for the applicant(s)
2. 30% of the scoring will be allotted to the potential usability and community impact that the project will provide
3. 30% of the scoring will be allotted to the creativity and uniqueness of the project
4. 10% of the scoring will be allotted to the potential for the applicant(s) to successfully meet all outlined deliverables

Projects must be respectful and courteous and preferably presented in English. The project must be an original work by the applicant(s) and the applicant(s) must have all necessary rights in and to the project. If created by a team, the team members must be acknowledged for their role in the final product.

Projects must not infringe upon or violate any laws or any third party rights, including but not limited to, copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, or other proprietary rights and must not constitute material that would be libeling, defamatory, a privacy violation, or a contract breach.

Please review the Project Report document so that you are familiar with the main deliverable before you begin your project. This document is a due by September 1, 2020. More details will be provided once awards are distributed. The document is only a template and you can add to it if you see fit.

• Any videos, reports, or other outcomes from your project should be highlighted and presented along with this report
• Be sure to include your learnings throughout the project
• Mention anyone that has helped throughout your project and in what capacity they helped
• Include a statement explaining next steps for your project or how you will use your learnings in the future