Global Environmental Education Partnership (GEEP) Youth Innovation Challenge. In partnership with the Taiwan Ocean Conservation Administration (OCA), GEEP invites you to apply for the 2024 Youth Innovation Challenge (YIC): Advancing Marine Conservation! The YIC provides an opportunity for young people ages 15–30 around the world to share their innovative solutions to protect marine resources. This year’s challenge explores how we can address marine issues, including loss of biodiversity, marine debris, lack of awareness, and other related issues, and support people of all ages to be engaged stewards to support marine environments.
Eligibility Requirements
The Youth Innovation Challenge is intended for young leaders and innovators aged 15–30. Your innovative solutions must provide a solution to one of the following key areas, using environmental education as a key component:
- Marine biodiversity and conservation: Managing, protecting, and/ or restoring marine biodiversity for its ecological, cultural, economic, and other values.
- Marine debris: Reducing and/or mitigating the effects of marine debris, including the monitoring, clean-up, and recycling of marine debris, and educating communities about how to address these issues.
- Public-private collaboration: Collaborating between the private sector, governments, and the public to protect marine environments. This might include ideas for cooperation between government and corporations to fulfill corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals, civic engagement opportunities for the public to engage with government programs, and other initiatives that foster collaboration between public and private sectors.
Benefits
All eligible proposals will be evaluated by a panel of experts working at the intersection of environmental education, community engagement, and marine conservation. A total of 15 YIC finalists will be selected and will receive the following benefits:
- An official YIC finalist certificate
- Recognition through GEEP, NAAEE, and other global partners’ websites and social media pages
- GEEP will select 3 winners from the 15 YIC finalists. Each winner will receive a $1,000 USD prize, in addition to all the benefits listed above, and will be invited to attend the YIC award ceremony at the Taiwan Ocean Conservation Administration’s marine debris conference in Taiwan in September 2024 (all travel expenses covered).
Proposal Process
- Applications should include a short (3 minutes or less) video pitch about your innovative solution as well as detailed responses to the questions below. Successful proposals will describe how their solution addresses marine conservation, biodiversity, debris issues, or uses public-private collaborations to protect marine environments, and will explain how their solution is innovative, feasible, and grounded in effective environmental education (see Selection Criteria below).
- Applications must be submitted online through Submittable by Wednesday, June 12, 2024 at 11:59 PM U.S. Eastern Time. Winners will be notified by September 2024.
Deadline: June 12, 2024
Click HERE to Apply
