A challenge to inspire school students!

CHENNAI: The Design for Change school challenge will be reaching out to 60,000 schools in India this year to inspire students to take up challenges in their day-to-day lives and imagine a solution, implement it and share it with others to empower them with the can-do spirit.Kiran Bir Sethi, Founder of Design for Change and Director of Riverside School, Ahmedabad, said that the contest that was introduced in 2009 by Riverside School had grown to inspire children across the globe to channelise their creative powers and take up projects about issues ranging from rainwater harvesting to cleaning up of beaches and harnessing renewable sources of energy. In 2009, the contest had over 100,000 children designing solutions for challenging problems, while this year, the contest would reach out to 300,000 schools from over 33 countries for the contest, she stated.She added that Amar Chithra Katha, the comic book publishers, would be publishing 20 of the shortlisted stories of change from across the globe on October 2 to commemorate Gandhi Jayanthi as the “Be the Change Day”. About 50 prizes would be sponsored by Nickelodeon while Career Launcher will present counselling workshops. Furthermore, iKen school and Mexus Education would sponsor 100 science kits for winning stories, while mySpark would award 20 educational tablets for selected stories. Also, Director Raju Hirani would provide two internships to the winning teams.As part of the contest, school teams that completed registering their ideas by August 15, would have to implement the solution that they proposed for the problem and record the change created by their solution for a minimum period of one week. The implementation phase would have to be completed anytime between July15 and October 2nd. The contestants would be judged for their fresh perspectives on existing problems and potential to effect significant change in one week. October 15 would be the last date for submission of forms and the winners would be announced on November 14. The prize distribution would take place on November 19. In 2010, the contest covered 38,000 schools and enlisted the participation of over 100,000 children. In addition, it also reached out to 22 countries, including Japan, Russia and Peru.  For more details, visit www.dfcworld.com.