Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship Launches Online Innovation Challenge

The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) today launched "Moody's Information to Innovation Challenge," an international, online innovation challenge, in which young people (14-19) develop innovative solutions to two challenges, enter them in competition and win funding. The program is sponsored by The Moody's Foundation.

The competition website, which went live today, is: moodysi2i.nfte.com

 

Moody's Information to Innovation Challenge features two unique tasks – the Social Media Savvy Challenge and the Business of Doing Good Challenge. The Moody's Information to Innovation Challenge is designed to refine and develop decision making and risk management skills by having young people, in teams of two or three, design a new, innovative product or service that can address either of the two tasks and be used by other students anywhere in the world.

"We are thrilled to work with The Moody's Foundation to offer this fun opportunity for young people to innovate in the important areas of social media and social entrepreneurship," said Shawn Osborne, President and CEO of NFTE. "The Challenge inspires ingenuity and fuels innovation among youth by empowering them to be global agents of change."

"Innovation and creativity, especially among young people, are essential to maintaining a vibrant, rich and growing world community," said Frances Laserson, President of The Moody's Foundation. "We are delighted to work with NFTE and establish this platform for young people to display their creativity and be rewarded for it."

To raise awareness for the Challenge and help young people innovate, Moody's will also host Innovation Days throughout the Challenge submission time. Innovation Days are opportunities for students to work together in teams and in-person to address, design and submit their innovative and entrepreneurial solutions to the challenges. Although more may be added, Innovation Days are scheduled in London (April 15^th), Hong Kong, Israel, the UAE and New York City (March 3^rd).

Schools, teachers, students and host organizations can begin the Challenge by downloading a basic toolkit from the Challenge site. Young people who enter the Challenge will have until April 16, 2015 to submit their innovations.

The six top submissions in each category, as selected by judges, will be narrowed to three category finalists by a committee of elite judges from The Moody's Foundation. Those top 3 finalists will go head-to-head in public online voting from May 15 - 28, 2015. Winners will be announced on June 1, 2015.

There will be two winning teams per category: the "Adjudicators' Choice" selected by the judges from The Moody's Foundation, and the "People's Choice", chosen by popular online vote.  The two winning teams in each category will share a prize of $5,000, and a prize of $500 for their school or other non-profit youth serving organization. Two runner-up teams will share a $1,000 award, plus a prize of $250 for their school or youth serving organization.