Deadline: April 30, 2019.

The Geneva Tsinghua Initiative provides innovative education programs that address in a practical, hands-on way the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The different programs involve students and professionals who spend part of their time in Geneva, working directly with the International Organizations there, and part in Beijing and Shenzhen, two of China’s most dynamic and entrepreneurial environments.

The SDG Summer School is inspired by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs, launched by the UN in 2015.  To achieve these goals, we need to enable today’s youth to play an active and meaningful role in tackling them. The motivation of the SDG Summer School is for teams of university students, in close collaboration with International Organisations in Geneva, to conceive ways to use open data, crowdsourcing technologies, and low-cost open source solutions to achieve concrete steps towards the SDGs, at a local, regional or global level.

The SDG Summer School is all about team-based problem solving and hands-on prototype development, going from a conception phase to producing practical demos. All accepted participants receive intensive mentoring and coaching to help transform their ideas into impactful projects, and become part of a global community of civic innovators. The SDG Summer School includes study visits to UN Agencies, International Organisations, NGOs and other partnering organisations in Geneva, as well as participation in the Learning Planet Assembly in Paris (26-27 July).  

 

CHALLENGES

This year’s Summer School is inspired by the challenge of SCALING EDUCATION FOR THE SDGS. How can young innovators use CROWDSOURCING and OPEN DATA, combined with new technologies and social networks, to maximize the impact of SDG Education?

Challenge 1- SDGs in Schools
New ways of embedding SDG education in primary, middle and high school
Challenge 2- Online Education for SDGs
Generating innovative learning platforms for SDG education
Challenge 3- Hands on Learning and SDGs
Integrating SDG learning in maker spaces, fab labs and libraries.
Challenge 4- Challenge-based learning for SDGs
Launching Global and Local Competitions around SDGs
Challenge 5- Crowdsourcing for SDGs
Exploiting Citizen Science, gamification, and social networks for SDG education
Challenge 6- New Technologies for SDG Education
Applying Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and other cutting-edge technologies for SDG learning

 

ELIGIBILITY

The school targets undergraduate (Bachelor) students from all relevant fields, and also considers well-motivated Master students.

 

PRIZE

Three of this year’s Summer School participants will be selected for the 2019 UNLEASH event. UNLEASH is a global innovation lab, which gathers 1,000 talents annually to collaborate on solutions to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This year, UNLEASH will be held in Shenzhen, China, from November 6-13, 2019. This is a chance to be one of the talents selected to be part of the leading platform for solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.

 

OFFICIAL LINK

 

Click here to apply