The annual Big Ideas contest seeks both students with health-focused innovations and global health experts to participate in this year’s contest!
As one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious social impact contests, Big Ideas provides up to $300,000 directly to students each year for their groundbreaking initiatives across 8 categories. Armed with the training and seed funding provided by Big Ideas, student teams have gone on to secure over $150 million in additional funding for their social ventures, and judges and mentors play a pivotal role in their success at an early stage.
Global Health is one of the contest’s most popular categories. Experts with 8+ years of experience are encouraged to support student innovators as judges and mentors, and students with creative solutions that tackle domestic and international health challenges are invited to submit a proposal!
Call for Global Health experts
Apply ASAP to be a judge or mentor (latest by November 15)!
Big Ideas judge & mentor roles are ideal for public health professionals with 8+ years of experience who are interested in engaging with and supporting student innovators! Pre-proposal judges commit between 3 to 6 hours total over the course of 3 weeks (November 18 to December 8), scoring and providing feedback on 6-9 pre-proposals. Mentors are paired with a team based on their expertise, and commit approximately 6 hours of advising to students between late January and early March. Both processes can be conducted entirely online, allowing judges & mentors to participate remotely and to give teams detailed feedback in their free time. For more information, visit the judge page and mentor page, or apply here.
Call for Student Proposals
Pre-proposal deadline: November 16, 2016 12pm (noon).
Students can win up to $18,000 for their global health innovation through Big Ideas. In the first round, students applying to the Global Health category are required to submit a 3-page concept note or pre-proposal that describes an action-oriented, inter-disciplinary project that would help alleviate a health concern among low-resource communities. Proposals submitted to this category should a) demonstrate an evidence of a widespread health concern faced by low-income populations or low-resource communities, and b) develop a system, plan, or technology that addresses this problem that is both culturally appropriate within the target communities, and appropriate for low-resource settings. Visit the website to learn more about the category and past projects, school eligibility, and requirements.
For questions about either opportunity, email us at bigideas@berkeley.edu.