Write your way to the Youth Summit in Costa Rica

POTRAZ (Zimbabwe’s telecoms regulator) is holding a writing competition for students between the ages of 15 and 25 who are studying technology related courses. The concepts will be on how innovative digital technologies can help meet social needs like unemployment and child online protection. The first two winners will represent Zimbabwe at the coming Youth Summit in Costa Rico in September 2013. For more details on this you can read the extract below from the NUST Facebook page.

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe, (POTRAZ) under the auspices of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations, are inviting participants to write concept letters to enter the “Digital technologies and Applications ”Concept Writing competition for young people”.

The main objective is to come up with the best two winners to represent the country and attend the “Global Youth Summit- Beyond 2015”, which will be held in San Jose, Costa Rica, from 9 to 11 September 2013.

The sessions in Costa Rica will be dynamic and fresh, and will encourage open dialogue, discussions, debate and free flow of ideas between young people participants and inspiring guest speakers, mentors, government and thought leaders. It will also promote international friendship and develop young people in the ICT world. The topic for the concept letter is “WRITE A CONCEPT PAPER ONHOW INNOVATION BASED DIGITALTECHNOLOGIES AND APPLICATIONS CAN RESPOND TO SOCIAL NEEDS SUCH AS UNEMPLOYMENT AND CHILD ONLINE PROTECTION AS A MODEL FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT“.

2.0 POTRAZ PRIZES

POTRAZ will present national awards to top two winners who will represent Zimbabwe at a Youth Summit in Costa Rica in September 2013. Third, fourth and fifth top students will also be given complimentary prizes.

3.0 RULES OF THE COMPETITION

The competition is restricted to Zimbabwean young people between the ages of 15 and 25 years.

The respondents should be studying technology related courses.

The respondents should have Zimbabwean passports with at least 3 unused pages and valid up to 31 March 2014 or beyond.

Entries should show area of study and name of college.

3.2 FORMAT: All submissions should be presented in the form of a letter and must strictly adhere to the theme and should be between 800 and 1000 words.

4.0 DEADLINE: The deadline for submission of entries is 15 AUGUST 2013.

5.0 PRESENTATION: Judges will pay special attention to:-

Thorough research and innovativeness on digital technologies and applications, responding to social needs.

Relevance of the concept letter to the topic.

Originality and unpublished work.

Good grammar and presentation in writing.

Winners are expected to make personal presentations on their concept letters before a panel of judges.

6.0 ENTRIES

6.1 All entries should clearly show the name, gender, age of entrant, contact

telephone numbers, e-mail address and name of college and its full address.

6.2 The concept letters must be e-mailed to youthsummit13.itu@potraz.gov.zw and hard copies will not be entertained.

6.3 A panel of judges will choose winners of the competition. 

This is a very praiseworthy, however we feel the restriction to accept only students studying technology related courses is unfair. Digital technologies are really in every facet of life. There are many students who are not studying these courses but have interesting technological ideas. And also considering that the Facebook post was only made yesterday, the deadline of 15 August is too soon to make all the relevant preparations.

We have made efforts to contact POTRAZ to get more info but we haven’t been successful yet. We will however update this article once we have more info.