10-21 years old? Be a problem solver! Brainstorm ideas and submit your solution. Second Round Open May 11th to June 18th. $3,000 rewards pool.

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View Winners

This challenge has finished. You can see all winners and runners up here

 

The Challenge (Round 2) 

A no-touch hand sanitiser station, an interactive video game bringing family and friends to life in a virtual world, a children’s book addressing important issues in a fun and colourful way. These are just some of the amazing ideas that young people have developed to tackle the challenges caused by Coronavirus in the first round of our challenge. Now we want to hear your ideas! What problems have you noticed in your community? What ideas do you have to solve these?! 

The top ideas will be featured on our website and social media channels and be in the running for part of our $3,000 rewards pool! You might even get connected to someone who can help you make your idea a reality! All ideas must be submitted by 5pm on the 18th of June 2020 to be considered.

What is the challenge? This is the second round of an online design challenge that empowers you to identify problems in your community caused by the Coronavirus, and identify who these problems are impacting, develop a solution, and create a prototype. 

How do I participate? This is a challenge you can do on your own or with a friend, team or family member. It can also be run by your teachers or parents. 

Want feedback along the way? Submit your idea by the 29th of May to get feedback from the Young Change Agents team! You can login and improve your idea all the way up to the 18th June so the sooner you get started the more time you will have to refine it!

Why is this important? All sorts of problems have emerged due to the Coronavirus!

  • People are isolated from their usual social circles
  • People are more anxious and stressed
  • Families are spending more time together indoors.
  • Lockdowns and cancellations are reducing people’s work hours or in some cases causing unemployment (especially in industries like hospitality/creative industries like music/theatre and sport.
  • People can’t access the things they want easily - toilet paper for example!
  • Supply chains have been disrupted as we can’t trade or move goods as freely across borders
  • Learning is moving more online and people don’t have access to tech or know how to use it!
  • The list goes on!

Who are we?
Young Change Agents is a not-for-profit social enterprise that empowers young people across Australia to find problems in their community, reframe them as opportunities, and then come up with solutions. Whilst we can’t run any big events right now, we still want to support young people like yourselves to be Young Change Agents!

Rewards Pool (submit your idea by the 18th of June be considered by our judging panel)

There will be two categories

1. 10-15 years old's (3 winners will be chosen)

2. 16-21 year old's (3 winners will be chosen)

The winners will receive the following per idea:

  • An awesome JBL Flip Essential Portable Bluetooth Speaker
  • A virtual mentoring package from Young Change Agents (2 x 1 hr sessions)
  • Plus the opportunity to be featured on our website and in our top ideas media campaign!
  • 14 Runners-Up will also receive a special reward for taking part and be featured on our site as a runner-up!

Winners will be announced here on the 26th of June. The judges decision is final!

This challenge is simple:

1. Identify a problem
Look around your community and identify some problems related to the Coronavirus that you want to solve. You might do this through talking to people you know about some of the problems they’re experiencing (we recommend using the phone or internet for this rather than going to see people in person). You might also do some online research about the problems that different groups (e.g. young people, old people, casual staff) are experiencing because of Coronavirus. Once you’ve found a few different problems think about the one you are the most passionate about.

2. Reframe it as an opportunity
At Young Change Agents we like to think about opportunities rather than problems. This helps you to be creative and innovate, rather than focus on a negative situation. To turn your problem into an opportunity you can think about what causes that problem and then how you can reframe it as an opportunity to create change. For example,  the Tik Tok #washyourhands problem was that the virus was spreading through hand contact. The opportunity was framed as, “How might we teach young people to wash their hands in a fun way?”. Try and write up your problem as an opportunity starting with, ‘How might we…?

3. Define your audience
To create a solution that will have a positive impact you need to think about who the impact is for. You can do this by thinking about the problem and who is actually experiencing it. Is it parents, young people, workers? Try and figure out the type of people that you want to help.

4. Come up with some ideas
Now is the time to be creative! Get a notebook, post-its or some coloured paper and come up with as many ideas as you can. Imagine you have one million dollars and you can do anything you want. Imagine you had to use tech to do it. Then imagine you had no access to tech..what would you do? Push yourself to come up with at least ten different ideas. Then take a break and try and come up with even more! Think about your audience you chose and how you could best help them. Once you’ve got a lot of ideas choose the one you think would best solve your opportunity. This is your solution.

5. Test your solution
Before you share your ideas, it’s a good idea to test and improve them. For example, you might talk to your parents about the opportunity you’ve found and your idea and ask for some feedback. This can help you to make your idea even better. You might also try and talk to some people that are your audience - someone who would be impacted by your opportunity. Don’t forget to try and avoid close contact with people and use the internet and the phone where possible.

6. Share!
Now that you’ve got an idea, we want to hear it! Fill out THIS form and share it with us. We’ll also ask for a picture of your solution. This could be of your brainstorming, a picture of what your idea would look like, a poster promoting your idea or something else that is a visual representation of your idea.

Challenge Tips

For Educators

Would you like to run this as a 1-2 hour design-thinking challenge for your class? Young Change Agents have designed a free classroom kit for all Australian schools.

For Parents (of Under 18 Entrants)

This is a great activity to do with your child to re-frame current challenges as an opportunity to problem-solve. You or your child will need to create an account to post their project idea! Point your child to this page to work through independently using the instructions to the left and video tips OR you can run this as a 90 min challenge at home using our worksheet and guide! T&C's on the sign-up form!

Special Guest Judges

Jackie Coates

Head of Telstra Foundation

Sachin Shah & Adam Miller

Co-founders The Sachin & Adam Show

Tim Prosser

Startup Mentor

Katura Halleday

Social Entrepreneur

Oliver Weidlich

Founder and Director for Mobile Experience