Calling all the young & bright minds residing in Lebanon to join us in order to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing your generation!
The Generation Unlimited (GenU) Youth Challenge is a global social entrepreneurship & youth engagement initiative taking place in more than 25 countries worldwide. It’s happening for the third time in Lebanon under the umbrella of the Generation of Innovation Leaders (GIL) programme, powered by UNICEF Lebanon, funded by the Kingdom of Netherlands and Andan Foundation, organized by INJAZ Lebanon and in partnership with the Nawaya Network, DOT Lebanon, Berytech, URWA, Lebanese University, AND, LOST and Mouvement Social.
This year’s edition of the GenU Youth Challenge is called imaGen Ventures. It will be four-day intensive bootcamp taking place online (1 day) and in-person (3 days) during which you will be working as teams to scale up your project or business idea that should be related to 3 selected topics (see below) serving the sustainable development goals. On the fourth/last day, each team will be pitching their idea in front of a judging panel to select the 5 winning teams who will move to the incubation phase and win up to $1,000 as seed funding.
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE?
We highly encourage TEAMS participation!! We are also accepting individual applications, however, as an individual applicant you need to be informed that, if accepted, you will be matched with other members to form a team. Here are the eligibility criteria*:
- Aged between 18 & 28 years old (applies to every member of the team).
- Teams should be between 3 to 5 members.
- Individual applications are accepted but will be assigned to a team.
- Open to businesses at early-stage development /or/ must at least have a business idea – both related to this year’s topics (see topics below).
- Able to commit to the bootcamp & attend all the days (applies to every member of the team – see dates below).
- Open to all areas of Lebanon (Beirut, Mount Lebanon, North, South, Beqaa)
*Make sure to be transparent when answering the form questions about your personal details as further documents will be requested for verification like your ID. Wrong information will lead to the dismissal of your participation and potentially that of your team.
TOPICS
Your youth-led project or idea must be related to at least one of the below topics for this year. Here are the 6 topics options, however please note that around 3 topics will end up being selected depending on the applications we receive.
- Education and skills building
- Climate change
- Gender equality & inclusion of young people with disabilities
- Food security
- Economic growth and innovation
- Sustainable cities
STAGES & PRIZES
- STAGE 1 – Bootcamp [4 days]: Around 15 teams will be accepted to participate in the BootCamp.
- STAGE 2 – Incubation [2 months]: 5 winners will make it to stage 2! Each winning team will receive up to $1,000 as seed funding to further develop their business idea.
- STAGE 3 – Global Competition [in August, 2022]: 2 teams only, out of the 5 winning teams, will get to participate in the global GenU Youth Challenge competition against 24 countries through video submissions with a chance to win a bigger seed funding & an extensive mentoring and incubation support.
TIMELINE & DATES*
- Deadline for applications: Wednesday, April 20, 2022.
- DAY 1 – Pre-bootcamp [online]: Saturday, April 30, 2022.
- DAYs 2 & 3 – Bootcamp [in person]: Saturday, May 7 & Sunday, May 8, 2022.
- DAY 4 – Competition [in person]: Friday, May 13, 2022
*Transportation will be covered from selected meeting points in all areas across Lebanon.
*Dates may change if needed, you will be notified in case it happens.
*Days 1 to 4 are a full day event which may last from 9AM to 4PM (to be confirmed)
APPLICATION PROCESS
- Applying as a team: each member of the team must fill this application individually! We will be identifying you as one team based on your answers to some questions we added (based on your team name if any or based on the team members’ names).
- Applying as an individual: you just need to fill this application. If accepted, we will be matching you with others to form a team. You will be working together and equally to come up with ONE idea for your team and work on it together.
- Applying here does NOT GUARANTEE your participation. All applicants will receive an email notifying them of the acceptance results.