Time is running out for submissions to a competition organised by the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the Geneva Science Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) with entries closing this Friday, 19th August.
The UCT GESDA Youth & Anticipation Initiative Challenge tasks students with taking the 2021 Science Breakthrough Radar and applying them in a personal context.
“The purpose of this initiative is to empower African youth to realise not only that the present shapes the future, but that they can use the future to shape the present. Following the series, UCT and GESDA now invite African youth aged 30 or younger to submit ideas about how you can use the future to shape our present, based on any of the topics covered in the sessions,” the description reads.
The aforementioned series in that description is a collection of conversations hosted throughout July touching on various topics and hosted by UCT Vice-Chancellor and GESDA board member Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng (pictured above).
While July is now over these talks can still be watched at your leisure on YouTube by clicking on the following topics: Quantum Revolution & Advanced AI, Human Augmentation , Eco-regeneration, Geoengineering and Space Resources and Science & Diplomacy.
With those series of discussions as inspiration to partake it’s good to know what’s on the line as this is, after all, a competition.
“The prize is an all-expenses paid trip to attend the GESDA Summit 2022, a global gathering of thought leaders on these topics that will take place in Geneva, Switzerland from 12–14 October 2022. The Summit will bring together academics, politicians, diplomats, executives and investors from around the world to participate in a series of plenary and parallel sessions of rich and engaged discussions,” adds the description.
The application form for the contest, with more information about its specifics, can be found through Google Docs here.
We highly recommend that anyone thinking of joining carefully reads the information here carefully, especially around the criteria for participants. For example, a passport valid until at least May 2023 is listed as a must have, as is residency of an African country.
