About the competition
The Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition (CEC) is a part of the Entrepreneurship Campus and was initiated to empower entrepreneurs all around the world to create innovative answers to global and/or community challenges and to engage in a more peaceful and sustainable world.
You are invited to submit your innovative ideas and projects with a societal impact, which champion and implement one or more of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs and 169 related targets address the most important social, economic, environmental, health and governmental challenges of our time.
Before, during and after the CEC you have the possibility to take two courses to help develop a sustainable business model from your idea. You will gain knowledge that can be helpful to change or upgrade existing projects as well. The Brain versus Capital (BvC) course serves as a basis and can also be completed without prior registration. The additional Sustainable Entrepreneurship Course (SEC) is recommended to be done after the end of the BvC course. Both courses are free of charge.
Note: Taking the BvC and/or SEC course is not mandatory to take part in the Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition. However, it is a helpful tool to get the greatest possible potential out of your ideas and projects.
If you are between 13 and 29 years old, please submit your idea and/or project in the Youth Citizen Entrepreneurship category. If you are 30+ you can submit your idea and/or project to the Adult Citizen Entrepreneurship category. Please make sure that you submit your entry into the right category. If not, your entry cannot be included in the competition. You will have to delete the entry and submit it again.
Who Can Enter
Anyone who is 13 years old and over with an innovative idea for an enterprise which contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and everyone from 13 years up who is operating such an enterprise in the form of a business, a non-profit organization or an informal program.
Anyone who is able to submit their entry in English.
Depending on your age, you either take part in the Youth (13 – 29 years old) or the Adult (from 30 years up) category.
Please read the Privacy Statement attentively and thoroughly. By participating in the competition you confirm that you have read and understood the privacy statement and that you adhere to it.
How to Enter
Step 1
Register online and create your account! You will receive a confirmation email. In order to activate your account, you must confirm by clicking on the link in the email. If you cannot find the email, please check your spam folder.
Step 2
In order to participate in the competition, you must submit an idea and/or project in the Youth (13-29 years) or the Adult (from 30 years up) category. Fill out and submit the preliminary entry form.
Then wait for a response from the competition administrators: Entries are reviewed by the competition administrators of Stiftung Entrepreneurship and Digital Experts United. Only those entries that meet a certain standard and pass the preliminary screening will be invited to provide more details about their idea/project in a second entry form.
The status of an entry can be checked in your profile menu under “My Ideas/Projects”. All saved and submitted entries are saved there and can be accessed again at any time.
Please note: Rejected entries may be refined by the entrants and can be re-submitted up until the entries deadline.
Step 3
Entries (ideas and projects) that have passed the preliminary screening will be posted on the competition website and will participate in the competition.
Please note: Until 1 June 2021 every published entry will only be visible for the Entrepreneurship Campus community. At the start of the voting and commenting phase on June 1st, all entries will be published for the entire world outside the competition to see. All dates and deadlines can be found in the timeline.
Privacy Statement
Please read the Privacy Statement attentively and thoroughly. By participating in the competition you confirm that you have read and understood the privacy statement and that you adhere to it.
Timeline
04. April 2021: Start of the Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition
Now you can submit your idea and/or project. All published entries will only be visible for the Entrepreneurship Campus community.
01. June 2021: Start of voting, commenting and sharing phase
Now you have the chance to collect votes (and vote yourself), comment and share your entry. All entries will be published and for everyone to see.Read more
Difference between idea and project
IdeaAll the entries must consist of an innovative solution or proposition for an enterprise that champions the Sustainable Development Goals. They can be on the conceptual, planning, or start-up stage but they must not have led to a foundation yet.
Project
All the entries must consist of innovative projects run by existing enterprises in the form of businesses, NGOs or informal programs.
Personal Activity Indicator (PAI)
Feel encouraged to interact with the Entrepreneurship Campus Online Community to refine your idea/project and to comment constructively on other entries. The Personal Activity Indicator (PAI) is an in-house developed algorithm that measures and evaluates your activities in the community, your efforts and time spent on the courses as well as the number and quality of your comments. Not only votes are important. The PAI plays an important role in determining the finalists.
Dealbreaker
Our online spaces are dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender and gender identity, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion (or lack thereof). We do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery are never appropriate. Participants violating these rules will be expelled from the Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition immediately.
The following rules also apply to all offline events that take place on behalf of the Stiftung Entrepreneurship and the Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition, regardless of whether employees of the foundation or our partners are on site.
No weapons of any kind, or drugs are allowed at Entrepreneurship Campus and at offline events.
Participants are responsible for knowing and abiding by these rules.
Harassment includes:
- Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, age, race, or religion.
- Unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, and employment.
- Deliberate misgendering or use of ‘dead’ or rejected names.
- Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behaviour in spaces where they’re not appropriate.
- Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop.
- Threats of violence.
- Incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm.
- Deliberate intimidation.
- Stalking or following.
- Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes.
- Sustained disruption of discussion.
- Unwelcome sexual attention.
- Pattern of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others.
- Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease.
- Deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent except as necessary to protect vulnerable people from intentional abuse.
- Publication of non-harassing private communication.
The Entrepreneurship Campus prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort and therefore we will not act on complaints regarding:
- ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’.
- Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you”.
- Communicating in a ‘tone’ you don’t find congenial.
- Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions.
Furthermore, any type of fraud or attempted fraud will also result in immediate disqualification from the competition and deletion of your account on the Entrepreneurship Campus. That includes vote fraud in any kind of way.
We do not tolerate racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, and any other kind of discrimination based on religion, culture, or origin on our Entrepreneurship Campus. Any member who violates our terms will immediately be excluded from our campus.
Prizes and recognition
Entries will be posted on the competition website and are subject to online commenting and public voting. Ten finalists in Youth (idea & project) and Adult (idea & project) categories will be determined according to votes and the Personal Activity Indicator algorithm.
Finalists are requested to submit a video of their idea/project if they have not done so yet. The video can be a maximum of 3 minutes long, longer videos cannot be considered!
From among the finalists, the judges will make the final selection of three winners (Grand Prize, 2nd Prize, and 3rd Prize) in each category. Entries will be evaluated based on their entrepreneurial vision, feasibility, innovation, leadership, social impact, and sustainability, among other factors. The People’s Choice is awarded to the participant with the most votes, across both categories. They are automatically among the finalists.
Grand Prize winners will receive a virtual Gold Badge and a Certificate.
Second Prize winners will receive a virtual Silver Badge and a Certificate.
Third Prize winners will receive a virtual Bronze Badge and a Certificate.
People’s Choice Prize winners will receive a virtual Gold Badge and a Certificate.
Finalists not chosen as prize winners will receive an Honorable Mention Badge.
Grand Prize, Second Prize, Third Prize, and People’s Choice will be made public at a virtual Announcement Ceremony on 10 December 2021. All information about the process will follow.
In addition to the certificate, the winners of the Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition 2021 also have the chance to receive input and feedback from our experts in a 60 to 90 minute webinar. This gives you the opportunity to clarify open questions, network, and promote your idea/project and maybe find supporters outside of the CEC community.
For more information please open this link