Big Ideas Competition to Combat Climate Change

JAKARTA – The Asia Pacific region is especially vulnerable to climate change, and governments and citizens have been working to reduce its effects. To promote the collaborative exchange of innovative ideas, the Government of the Republic of Korea and the United Nations launched the third edition of the
Big Ideas Competition - Combating Climate Change.

In line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal #13 (Climate Action – taking action to combat climate change and its impact), this year’s competition is looking for original, data-driven ideas to monitor climate related indicators, including: strengthening resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and integrating measures into national policies, among others.

“Much progress has been made in this region of the world to improve the livelihoods of vulnerable communities, and to lose those advancements to climate change would be devastating”, said Derval Usher, Head of Pulse Lab Jakarta.

“We are delighted to once again partner with the Government of Korea to gather ‘big ideas’ from across the communities in the ASEAN Member States, Sri Lanka and the Republic of Korea - this time focusing on combating climate change”, she adds.

Residents of ASEAN Member States, Sri Lanka, and the Republic of Korea are eligible to submit proposals. The deadline for submissions is 7 September 2017. Applicants will compete for 12 country prizes, three excellence prizes, and a grand prize, with the total prize amount standing at approximately
USD 35,000.

Last year’s competition focused on sustainable cities and urban communities. Tune Map, an Indonesian team, was awarded one of the excellence prizes for designing a mobile application that guides the visually impaired on the safest routes using crowdsourced sightings. “My team learnt many valuable lessons after networking with the contest organisers, such as: how to better pitch our innovative ideas, how to finance a start-up, and ultimately how to build good relationships with the government”, explained Gita Nofieka Dwijayati of Tune Map.

The Big Ideas Competition for Climate Action is a collaboration between the National Information Society Agency (NIA) and Korea Association for ICT Promotion (KAIT), the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) of
the Republic of Korea, the United Nations Development Programme Bangkok Regional Hub, United Nations Volunteers, and the United Nations Global Pulse Lab in Jakarta, with support from the Government of Australia.

More information for applicants can be found on the UN Global Pulse website.

Pulse Lab Jakarta combines data science and human intelligence to help make sense of this interconnected, interdependent, and complex world. The Lab is a joint initiative of the United Nations and the Government of Indonesia, via United Nations Global Pulse and the Ministry of National Development and Planning (Bappenas) respectively.

United Nations Global Pulse - Pulse Lab Jakarta
​Wisma Nusantara
Jl. MH. Thamrin No. 59
Jakarta 10350 - Indonesia

Dwayne Carruthers (Press Contact)
Phone: +62-(0)21-3983-8473

This release was published on openPR.