Geek Challenge
From an article by Center on Business and Poverty
Yarl IT Hub is a non-profit organization based in Sri Lanka created to improve education, employment, and entrepreneurship for the community. They are a worldwide group of technology professionals who started with the Yarl Geek Challenge in 2012 and have added five initiatives since then.
The Yarl Geek Challenge (YGC) is actually two competitions, YGC Senior and YGC Junior.
YGC Senior is an entrepreneurship competition open to all youth through a formal application process by which they describe a problem and then create a product to solve the problem. They work in five member teams and the process involves mentors, researchers, and entrepreneurs so that the teams get real world experience plus a chance to develop a helpful network. This year the competition will be held online.
Criteria based on which the teams are evaluated throughout the competition are:
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Completeness of a minimal viable product
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Sustainable Business Model
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Scalable Business Model
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Usability and User Experience
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Innovation
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Originality
YGC Junior is a competition for students in schools organised in partnership with the Provincial Department of Education Northern Province and at this year’s event, they have over 50 teams participating in Web, Mobile, Hardware, Innovation, and Application of Science categories. Teams have come up with some really great products ranging from a Covid 19 safe sink to an app to prevent people from taking the wrong medicine and even a platform for free tutoring.
Criteria based on which the teams are evaluated are:
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Innovation
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Usability
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Completeness of a minimal viable product)
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Originality
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Technical stability
The Challenge relies on volunteers from the community, partners, plus sponsors who support technically and financially. Some are in USA and Canada.
The goal from the start was to improve young individuals’ situations by introducing technical skills and hopefully creating jobs.
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From an article by Center on Business and Poverty, 14/10/2020