The Youth Innovation Challenge for Peace, launched by UNDP South Sudan’s Community Security and Arms Control Project (CSAC) explored ways to engage young people in peace building processes. More than 130 young South Sudanese attended the presentation of the Youth Innovation Challenge for Peace Introduction Workshop in August 2016. 124 ideas were submitted and 26 semi-finalist selected to participate in an Ideation Hackathon. During two intense days 55 participants presented their ideas to the judging committee.

The participants received guidance and support for refining their ideas, structuring their proposals, and delivering effective presentations from UNDP’s Regional Innovation Advisor for Africa Mr. Marc Lepage and local open technology experts from Juba Hub (jHub).

During the lightning-round sessions each project had seven minutes to present their idea in whatever format they chose. Semi-finalists were judged based on a common set of criteria: clarity and presentation of their idea; creativity and originality of their idea; addresses the issue of engaging youth in peace; viability in the long term and financial sustainability; number of youth and general population who could benefit; implementable and realistic; scalable and replicable; and gender and social inclusion.

The overall winning proposals received seed funding for their projects of US$10,000, $6,000, and $4,000 for first, second, and third place, respectively.  

In July 2017, Ms. Yeni Yenki, co-founder of GoGirls ICT Initiative and one of the third place winners, represented South Sudan Youth Innovation Challenge participants at the inaugural #YouthConnekt Africa Summit in Kigali, Rwanda.

Download the brochure for more information about the Youth Innovation Challenge for Peace or visit www.bit.ly/innovationcompetition.