Idea Challenge

In order to encourage students’ interest and participation in community problem solving and social entrepreneurship, Koç University Social Impact Forum, Incubation Center, and the Office of International Programs are coming together to create and sponsor a set of “Idea Challenge”.

The Idea Challenge is designed to encourage the development of different social entrepreneurship ideas to solve a specific social problem of Sarıyer. For each challenge, a different partner out of Koç University is invited to design the challenge together with Koç University, providing details regarding the existing problem and current solutions. The challenge is then presented to the university population by different activities like trips, seminars, and games and submissions are collected with final selection determined by a multi-disciplinary jury.

The top idea from each challenge is provided funding, resources and consulting by Incubation Center to create a pilot program/prototype in partnership with the challenge’s outside partner.

Purpose

The value of the Idea Challenge can be summarized as follows:

To increase awareness for local social problems and issues
To spark interest in entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship on campus
To foster creative problem solving and out-of-the-box thinking
To bring students and staff from all disciplines together around vital social issues by encouraging the formation of multi-disciplinary teams, and enable the implementation of innovative solutions

Format

Each Idea Challenge goes through the following stages:

1: Problem definition
2: Creation of awareness about the problem in the campus
3: Competition call and creating an area for the solution of the problem
4: Announcing the winner and giving the award

Judging Criteria

Ideas are judged and chosen based on the following criteria:

• Innovative Thinking
• Multi-Disciplinary Approach
• Applicability in the Real-World Environment
• Sustainably, Environmentally and Financially
• Level of Social Impact

Award

Winner received consultancy from Incubation Center and a financial funding award for her/his project.