2020 iSTART Inventing! Contest
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TOP PRIZE: An expense paid trip to attend a Kenya Youth Invention Summit - top winners chosen from each of the 5 categories - at the summit, you will learn from inventors and can win prizes through daily "think fast" invention challenges!
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"So...how do I get started?"
Step 1: Pick a question from one of the following 5 categories - Be sure to read all instructions before you pick a question so you know what to expect for your submission. There's some research information on each of the 5 areas if you take a look at our RESOURCE pages.
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BE SURE TO READ ALL IMPORTANT DATES AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE - THERE IS A DEADLINE FOR CONTEST SUBMISSIONS!
Water Managment
Climate change is on the rise in terms of the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. This has complicated water management creating new problems that affect agricultural production, food security, health risks and interrupt the provision of basic services such water and sanitation. Some technologies include water harvesting. However, some of these water harvesting technologies are expensive for rural communities. Rural population require low cost systems that can be constructed, operated and maintained.
What Would You Do With the money and any materials you needed to invent a simple, low cost, efficient and effective way to replicate rain water harvesting technology.
Agriculture Innovation
The Agriculture Sector in Kenya is central to the government’s Big 4 development agenda. Agriculture aims to attain 100% food and nutritional security for all Kenyans by 2022. For an African country like Kenya to be stable, food security is key. Agriculture Innovation is needed to improve food production. According to a report in 2019 from the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), the 3 major challenges of the Agricultural Sector in Kenya are:
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The use of outdated technology: Using technology is one of the KARI´s most important hopes for the future though it has been a major challenge to have users adopt the newer technology made available for them.
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Climate change: There is currently a project underway and is one of KARI´s strategic goals to achieve artificial irrigation to compensate the lack of rainfall in certain areas.
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Diseases and Pests: There is a huge problem with pests and diseases that not only applies to the pre-harvest moment. There have been some major issues with the storage facilities not being adequate for the goods to stay there for some period of time.
What Would You Do With a medium sized farm and sufficient funding to set up an innovative solution to solve one of the challenges listed above.
Software Engineering
In Kenya, the technology sector is rapidly growing in various forms, ranging from mobile technological developments such as increased smartphone use, technological finance developments such as mobile money, improved internet services such as 4G and LTE internet services, artificial intelligence and much more. With the extent of this industry’s growth, it has a huge potential to become the biggest in the years to come.
What Would You Do With a program or App that you create if you had unlimited knowledge and access to any software programming language available?
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Generating Power for Kenya
In Kenya, power is the most essential commodity for the people. Used among Kenyan citizens for business and in homes mainly for lighting, TV and operation of home appliances, many families are unable to access the electricity that is provided by the government because they live in remote areas. For that reason, our focus is those hard to reach areas.
We are calling the young people of Kenya to think about how they can help our society by tapping the sun rays for solar power generation that is readily available and is free.
What Would You Do With the opportunity to design something totally new to be used in rural communities? You have an unlimited supply of solar panels, batteries and all the electrical wiring and hardware needed to create your invention.
Structural
Engineering
According to a recent article in Construction Review Online, Kenya’s construction industry is projected to grow, as a result of increasing demand for pre-engineered building solutions that reduce construction time and cost.
The pre-engineered building solutions have revolutionized the construction industry by meeting the demand for innovative, cost-effective, and fast-paced construction of modern infrastructure.
What Would You Do With 3, extra large Pre-Engineered Steel Buildings you just received to use in your community? You can have them fitted any way you want with different structural additions like trusses, mezzanine floors, fascias, canopies and crane systems. Submit a drawing of the design on the inside of each building.
Step 2:
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Read the following guidelines...then...start inventing!
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Contest Submission Guidelines
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Why have some of the best minds in creating innovative programs for education gotten together to offer you a contest in the world of inventing?
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Because you carry the seeds of ideas you may not even know live inside your brain! Yes, you! As you go through your everyday life…you see and experience the “stuff” that brings inventions to life!
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What better time than now to search what ideas lurk in the recesses of your creativity! Your school has had to shut down…time seems to be moving SO slowly as you wait for life to return to normal…what better time than now to let your brain go wildly free to explore ideas and inventions!
Sound good? OK…get a pencil, paper and get ready!
Your goal in the iSTART Inventing! Contest is to prepare a submission, a creative concept, about your invention idea. Creative concepts are not final products. They are a rough draft of an idea that will show our judges how the invention could take shape.
You can only enter one invention in the 2020 iSTART Inventing! Contest for a chance to become one of our top finalists. All finalists will win an all expense paid trip to a Youth Invention Summit in Nairobi. Enjoy the journey and here’s what you have to do to enter!
There are 3 parts to your submission:
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First: You can use up to 500 words to tell us a story about your invention. Story is how we perceive and process the world around us. Instead of presenting your idea solely as a series of facts, organize your facts into a story that tells us the following:
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The over-arching, “big idea.” Present your story in a way that gives us the overall idea of what your invention will be.
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Bring passion to your invention – passion is the fuel for action! Your story should show us how your invention arose from your personal experience and your passion.
Second: You can use up to 550 words to define the problem and write a problem statement. A problem statement is a concise description of the issue that needs to be solved. It answers three questions:
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What is the problem to be addressed?
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Who has the problem?
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What will the people affected do as a result of your idea?
Third: Create a picture. Submit a scientific, visual representation of your invention. Show the following:
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Using a drawing you sketch or a photo of a model you build, give the judges an idea of how the invention would take shape.
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If your idea is in the world of software engineering, you do not have to build the entire program. You would _______________________
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Include research findings and strategic insights you have discovered that support the reasoning behind your invention (no more than 350 words - The focus is on the drawings, sketches, and prototype)
That’s it…up to 1400 words and a picture or photo of your idea! You do not have to use that many words but you might be surprised how many words you use when it is something important to you and you are having fun doing it.
Just by accepting the challenge to dive deep into exploring in the realm of problem solving, you’re on your way to becoming an inventor!
What You Need to Know About the Judging
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What are we looking for? Your creativity! What counts as an invention? Improving something that exists or coming up with something totally new! You can take an existing invention and improve on the design or you can come up with something totally new and unknown!
Here are some things to keep in mind about the iSTART Inventing! judging:
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Your ideas are protected – we have specially chosen judges who will review your idea and it will go no further than their eyes. Also, your ideas will not be published by our team in any form, not on our website or in any relationship to this event. If you decide at a later date to enter the same idea for your invention in any kind of competition, your idea will be as new to them as it was to us!
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A creative concept is not the final product but an idea of how it could take shape. We are not looking for a detailed plan for this contest, only the concept behind your idea.
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Building a model will not rank your idea higher than another submission during the judging process. A well drawn sketch with labeled parts of your invention will be judged equal to that of a scale model of your invention – Judging is based on the concept and how you communicate your concept
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Focus on the problem not the “aesthetics” – how your invention will look. Rather, show that you understand the problem that your concept is intended to solve.
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We recommend you show your work in relationship to competitors. Look at what has been done. Compared to others in the field, tell us how your idea will change, improve or totally turn the world upside down with your idea!
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Do not dwell on design elements or design specifics. You are showing us how the design of your invention meets the need of the problem you are saying you will solve.
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Convey your excitement! Make sure to tell or describe the “Aha!” moment that convinced you toward this invention.
Rules for Submission:
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All submissions must be in English. We are not judging Grammar or Spelling just use your best English.
The idea must be original work that has been developed by the named applicant and it must be entirely the work of the applicant. This is not a team project. Though individuals up to the age of 20 may assist as a “sounding board” for the applicant to test his/her ideas before submitting, no other person may create any of the submitted elements or provide excessive influence on the concept design.
The idea may include pre-existing elements and components created by others as long as the proper credit is given. The submission and/or presentation may not disclose any third-party intellectual property or violate any existing copyright protections.
Submissions may not copy or use other materials without properly citing the source. Proper citation includes the standard information of a scientific citation, including authors, publication source, dates, volume, pages or URL information.
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Important Dates:
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Mon, January 11 Release of Weekly Challenge #1
Mon, January 18 Release of WC #2 - Tue, January 19 Winners of Week 1 announced
Mon, January 25 Release of WC #3 - Tue, January 26 Winners of Week 2 announced
Mon, February 1 Release of WC #4 - Tue, February 2 Winners of week 3 announced
Mon, February 8 Release of WC #5 - Tue, February 9 Winners of week 4 announced
Mon, February 15 Release of WC #6 - Tue, February 16 Winners of week 5 announced
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Wed, February 17 - WE BEGIN ACCEPTING PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS FOR iSTART Inventing! Contest
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Mon, July 06 Release of Weekly Challenge #4 - Tue, July 07 Winners of Week 3 announced
Mon, July 13 Release of Weekly Challenge #5 - Tue, July 14 Winners of Week 4 announced
Mon, July 20 Release of Weekly Challenge #6 - Tue, July 21 Winners of Week 5 announced
Mon, July 27 Release of Weekly Challenge #7 - Tue, July 28 Winners of Week 6 announced
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Wednesday, March 3: FINAL DAY FOR PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS to enter iSTART Inventing! Contest
Acceptance of submissions closes at 11:59 PM on Wednesday, March 3, 2021
Weekly Challenges will continue through March 2, 2021
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Winners of the 2020 and 2021 iSTART Inventing! Contest will be contacted by email and/or by phone on or before March10th - Date of Kenya Youth Invention Summit To Be Announced based on developments with COVID-19 travel and group gathering restrictions - our hope is mid June!
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