‘Sustainable  Innovation for Planetary Health – Local Solutions for Global Problems’

This year’s competition is now CLOSED– please check back soon for details of this year’s winners

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WTUN Student Competition 2024-25

Now OPEN

We are seeking new sustainable and innovative, technological solutions to address the goals, and we invite project proposals from student teams (undergraduate, postgraduate or a combination and preferably multi-disciplinary).

We invite you to submit your ideas in the form of a proposal and short video that will be assessed by our panel of judges.

Winning Entries:

Winning teams (prize per team member to max team size of 4) will receive: 

1st place: £300  

2nd place: £150 

3rd place: £100 

 In addition, the winning team will be invited to present their winning idea, virtually, at WTUC 2025. The winning team will present their project to delegates as part of the Congress programme. 

1st, 2nd and 3rd place teams will receive a certificate of achievement. Each will be profiled, and their idea showcased on the WTUN website. 

 

 

 

 

 

Students are encouraged to focus not only on technical aspects, but also on the social, economic and regional challenges of addressing the Sustainable Development Goals.

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What do you have to do?

1. Form a team of four students (Maximum team size is four, undergraduate or postgraduate)
2. Choose one (or more) of the 5 SDGs listed to address, formulate your idea into a proposal and short video (3-5mins in length)
3. Submit your proposal using the form below by 23.59 (11:59pm) Thursday 10 April 2025

Winners will be announced by 31 May 2025.

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Submission format

Submission for the competition are completed via Microsoft Forms at the link below. You will be asked to answer a range of questions set to the assessment criteria below. Each proposal must also be accompanied by a short 3-5 minute video showcasing the proposal. The video should be uploaded to a video streaming site (preferably either Vimeo or YouTube) and the link submitted with the Microsoft Form proposal.

Any additional materials that teams wish to submit must be done through WeTransfer, Google Drive or similar.

Entries should demonstrate:

• How effectively does the proposal address the chosen United Nations Sustainable Development Goal(s) via sustainable innovation and technology?
• How effectively is the proposed public engagement demonstrated?
• Will there be a measurable societal impact? If so, how?
• Does the proposal demonstrate an understanding of localised solutions and the use of sustainable technological solutions?
• How deliverable is this proposal?
• Is this a cost-effective proposal?

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There will be the opportunity for the teams to score bonus points as follows:

• The team multidisciplinary (team members are from different subject disciplines)
• The proposed solution be applied to the geographical area of another WTUN member (judged on demonstration of research and application)

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There will also be assessment of the video element of the submission including:

• Does the video demonstrate the application of the idea and the innovation proposed?
• Is the idea explained in a coherent and understandable way?

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We encourage students to be innovative in how they present their idea!

DEADLINE – Thursday 10 April 2024

If you have additional documents, demos or media to go alongside your proposal, please email this to wtun@bradford.ac.uk clearly stating your team name.

Good luck!

See the winners of 2023-24 Student Competition here: 2024 Student Competition Winners

The World Technology Universities Network is a network of global technology universities committed to undertaking cutting-edge, challenge-led research with direct benefits to people and society, and providing education for the next generation of global citizens who will have to respond to the world’s 21st century challenges.

The Network (WTUN) provides an international forum for networking, sharing and advancing ideas at the Annual Congress, including but not limited to facilitating links, exploring potential collaborations and co-operating in areas of university teaching, learning and research.

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This statement sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you will be processed by in relation to the management of the WTUN. It describes how we collect, store, manage, protect and use your personal information.

Under what legal basis does the processing of my personal data take place?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 provide for a number of different legal bases under which processing of personal data may take place.  In this case, the following bases apply:

Legitimate Interests: For members, in signing the memorandum of understanding and consortium agreement each institution provides their personal data.  This is held under the legitimate interests of WTUN and your own institution.

We will collect and process personal data relating to employees and representatives of world universities and organisations we consider share the values and vision of WTUN in order to issue invitations to attend the World Technologies Universities Congress or join the network.

What categories of personal data are used?

The WTUN processes the following data to for the purposes of administration and in order to maintain the Network:

• personal contact details;
• visual images (for use in marketing materials);
• biographical details;
• education and employment details;
• Information contained in newspaper articles; and
• Information published by companies house or other legal regulators.

For the organisation and delivery of the Congress we use the following personal data:

• family, nationality or other information as stipulated by VISA regulations;
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• social media handles.

Where do we get your personal data from?

• from you and your institution;
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• shared by colleagues or associates who refer you to WTUN; and
• from Event registration forms.

Who else do we pass this information on to?

Your information may be shared with the individual  member organisations of WTUN, supporters or associate members of WTUN, suppliers of WTUN and potential members of WTUN in cases of a request for a testimonial about the Network.

We may need to disclose your details if required to the police, regulatory bodies or legal advisors where there is a legal requirement or an overriding public interest to do so.

Other than this WTUN would normally only share your personal data with contractors we use to deliver an event and in such cases, only for the purposes of delivering that event.  Examples include external event venues, caterers etc. We never sell or trade your personal data.

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Some of your personal data (list of participants with names, first names, photos and video images) may be published on the web.

We provide options to enable you to inform us if you do not agree with publication of your personal data or you may, at any time, contact the WTUN coordinator and let us know that this is the case.

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For WTUN members your personal data will be held and processed on University of Bradford’s secure drive and our cloud based CRM system, Salesforce.   Booking to the WTUN Congress is via a Google Form. For more information on Salesforce and Google, please see the next section

Access to information held for WTUN is restricted to individuals who need to see the data to carry out their duties. Your information is only accessible by appropriately trained staff and contractors.

We take appropriate measures to ensure that the personal information disclosed to us is kept secure, accurate and up to date and kept only for so long as is necessary for the purposes for which it is used.

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WTUN is a global network so transfer overseas is essential to its operation. In cases of transfer outside of WTUN members the WTUN host will seek your consent.

WTUC is delivered internationally. In this case it may be necessary to share data overseas in which case we will check there is adequate protection.

Salesforce and Google are US owned cloud based service providers.  Both of these organisations have  signed up to the Privacy Shield Framework https://www.privacyshield.gov/list which ensures that they apply the same levels of protection as the GDPR..

What are your rights as a data subject?

As a person whose personal data we are processing, you have certain rights in respect of that personal data; you have the right:

• To access your personal data that we process;
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• To object certain processing of your personal data;
• To complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office about the way in which we process your personal data.

For more information on any of this information, please contact the WTUN Coordinator in the first instance wtun@bradford.ac.uk , University of Bradford, Richmond Road Bradford BD7 1DP

To contact the University of Bradford’s Data Protection Officer, please call +44 (0)1274 233021 email: data-protection@bradford.ac.uk.

 

To discuss joining the Network please contact the WTUN Development Manager
Denise Whitehead
Email: wtun@bradford.ac.uk