1. Why the Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge (GSIC)?

 

People around the world increasingly view themselves as global citizens and favor companies that are socially and ecologically conscious. As the world becomes more interconnected, it is vital to bring these conscious citizens of the world together to solve the most pressing and chronic problems faced by communities around the world. The Fowler GSIC is designed to be such a platform through which we can inspire, learn from, and join forces with one another to help make this world a better place. Participation in the Fowler GSIC gives the students a hands-on opportunity to closely examine a global societal or environmental issue that impacts the lives of many, and think about the ways in which private, public and social sectors can collectively implement a solution that is impactful, sustainable, and scalable around the world. Along the way, students acquire necessary tools, receive mentoring, and possibly funding, to help them implement their social venture.

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Ultimately, Fowler GSIC serves the society by equipping tomorrow’s citizens with the awareness, empathy, and understanding of sustainable development challenges, and by enabling them with the necessary knowledge and skills to develop practical yet impactful solutions that can positively shift the behavior of complex societal systems. Even if the participants do not implement their proposed social venture after taking part in the challenge, the learning experience makes them a much more socially and environmentally conscious decision maker regardless of the sector they end up working in after their graduation.

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2. How does the Center for Peace and Commerce define Social Innovation?

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Social Innovation comprises of a novel solution to a social/environmental problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals.1

Social Innovation can take many shapes while creating a positive impact on the 5 Ps– Planet, People, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership.

See some of the ways social innovators are changing work in the 21st century.

1 PHILLS JR, J. A., DEIGLMEIER, K. & MILLER, D. T. 2008. Rediscovering Social Innovation. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 6, 34-43.

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3. What are the requirements for students’ topic selection?

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Students get to choose an issue to address but are asked to align their efforts to one (or more) of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) put forward by the UN.
 

4. What are the prizes?

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Seed funding totaling $50,000+ and a host of in-kind prizes will be awarded following the Fowler GSIC final in June. In addition, your institution may offer its own set of prizes and other resources to participants/semi-finalists/finalists.

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5. Who is eligible to participate?

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The Fowler GSIC is open to all degree and diploma-granting postsecondary education institutions such as universities/colleges located anywhere in the world that register for Fowler GSIC participation by November 30, of the given academic year.

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Each participating institution will receive full support from us to run the first two (of the three) stages of the challenge on their own campus, and will be able to nominate up to two finalist teams to participate in the third stage (the global final) that host university will put on in June. Institutions will align their local challenge branding with the Fowler GSIC by using the resources provided by the Fowler GSIC Team.

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Any current student (as of December of that academic year) of a participating institution can participate in the Fowler GSIC individually or as part of a team (with a maximum of five members per team). At least one team member must be a current undergraduate, postgraduate, or doctoral student (as of December of that academic year) at any of the participating institutions. The rest of the team members can be from any walk of life (i.e. belong to the same institute OR another participating institute or another non-participating institute, or not be a student at all)!

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6. What are the team size requirements?

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• Minimum team size is 1 (i.e. a student can participate as an individual).

• Maximum team size is 5.

• If a venture team has more than five members, the team will need to select a subset of up to five members that can represent the rest of the team in the GSIC, and obtain a written consent before the deadline for round 1 submission from those venture team members that are left out of the GSIC team.

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7. How about teams made up of members from multiple participating institutions?

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Teams made up of members from multiple participating institutions are absolutely welcome!

Each participating institution gets to nominate up to two teams to the global final. Therefore, if a team has members from more than one participating institution, the team must secure the nomination from one of these institutions for the global final. In addition, one of the team members must be a current student (as of December of that academic year) of the nominating institution.

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8. What material and guidance will my college/university receive from the Fowler GSIC Team?

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The Fowler GSIC Team will provide the following to each participating institution:

• Support for promoting the challenge on your campus:

  • An array of cobrand-able materials to promote the Fowler GSIC on your campus, including flyers, mass emails, classroom presentations, social media posts, etc.

• Support for running the challenge on your campus:

  • An online platform to manage round 1, round 2, and round 3 submissions.

  • Guidance for recruiting judges for round 1 and round 2 submissions for your institution, briefing packs for the judges for their onboarding & training, and detailed judging criteria for the judges to use while judging.

  • Examples of outstanding submissions from prior years for each round.

• Support for guiding student team efforts through seminars and workshops, coaching, and mentoring:

  • A recommended timeline and sample content to guide the design and delivery of suggested workshops and seminars at each participating institution.

  • Video recordings of our workshops and seminars/webinars shared with all of the participating institutions. Each institution can make these videos available to their students or simply use them to guide the design and delivery of similar workshops and seminars for their own teams.

  • Guidance for recruiting speakers, coaches, and mentors for workshops and seminars, and for one-on-one mentoring and coaching throughout the year.

  • A curated list of additional resources that the student teams can explore on their own.

• Participation in the global finals:

  • Up to two finalist student teams (and a faculty/staff/administrator chaperone) nominated by the university / enrolling unit can represent their institution at the global final either in-person or virtually.

  • Participating institutes and their nominated finalist teams can also invite others to be in the audience (at their own expense) at the global final.

  • Lunch and dinner for both days will be included in the program for the finalist team/s and their chaperones. Participating institutes will be responsible for the cost of their team/s’ travel expenses (such as visa costs, air tickets and local transportation, hotel, other meals, etc.).

 

9. What is the cost to participate?

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The cost to participate is US$3,000 per university/per enrolling unit at a university.

• A limited number of partial registration fee grants are available to small universities and/or universities located in emerging economies. Please indicate your interest in applying for this grant when you register for participation in the challenge.

The registration fee covers the following:

• Support for promoting the challenge on your campus through an array of cobrand-able materials.

• Support for running the challenge on your campus through access to an online platform.

• Support for guiding student team efforts through toolkits, facilitation guides, and videos of eight Idea Labs (hands-on workshops for students participating in the Fowler GSIC).

• Participation in the global final of that academic year for the two finalist student-teams and a faculty/staff/administrator chaperone nominated by the university/enrolling unit.

 

Please note that the registration fee does not include travel costs (such as visas, airfare, hotels, local transportation, meals, etc.) for the students and chaperones participating in the global final in June. Participating institutions may elect to fully or partially fund the travel costs for their finalist teams, require the teams to fully or partially fundraise to meet the travel costs, or elect to participate and pitch virtually at the final event.

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10. Should we sign up as an individual college or as an entire university?

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Each participating institution gets to nominate up to two teams to the global final. If you sign up as a university, you get to nominate two teams from the entire university. If you sign up as an individual college, your college gets to nominate two teams just from your college. If multiple colleges from the same university sign up individually, each of those colleges will get to nominate up to two teams per college.