Australian Innovation Challenge
About
The Australian Innovation Challenge is open to both individuals and teams in a range of professional categories and one general public category. You can enter whether you’re a professional scientist or engineer, or a creative genius inventing in your shed.
The awards have nine cash prizes. Seven professional categories, each carrying a prize of $5,000, cover everything from agriculture to astronomy. The overall winner will receive a further $25,000. The Backyard Innovation category is open to the general public, and the winner will take out an award of $10,000.
Prize Categories
1. Environment (Prize $5,000)
The environment category covers innovation, including clean energy technology, to help Australia reduce its carbon footprint and adapt to natural climate variability and global climate change. It also covers technology tackling problems in pollution control, biodiversity conservation, land degradation, and water conservation and quality. It includes breakthroughs in enabling technology such as nanotechnology and biotechnology.
2. Health (Prize $5,000)
The health category covers innovation in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, and in the improvement of Australians’ quality of life through good health. It includes breakthroughs in genetics, genomics, proteomics, biotechnology and nanotechnology, and the development of new drugs and medical devices.
3. Agriculture and food (Prize $5,000)
The agriculture and food category covers breakthroughs in food production and processing and in ways to safeguard the industry from invasive pests and exotic plant and animal diseases. It also covers biotechnology and nanotechnology.
4. Minerals and energy (Prize $5,000)
The minerals and energy category covers innovation in minerals and energy exploration, extraction and processing. It includes advances in biotechnology and nanotechnology.
5. Manufacturing and hi-tech design (Prize $5,000)
The manufacturing and high-tech design category covers innovation with the potential to make Australia’s manufacturing sector more efficient and competitive, to transform existing industries and to stimulate the creation of new industries and products. It also covers high-tech designs, either taken up in Australia or exported. It includes breakthroughs in textiles and in enabling technology such as nanotechnology and advanced materials.
6. ICT (Prize $5,000)
The ICT category covers innovation in digital technology, including systems with the potential to transform sectors such as data processing, communications, health, commerce, manufacturing and environmental protection.
7. Education (Prize $5,000)
The education category covers advances promising to strengthen Australia’s skills base, to ensure equity in education and to consolidate our position in the global education market. It includes new technology in teaching and learning.
Overall winner (Prize $25,000) http://www.government-grant.com.au/
8. Backyard Innovation (Prize $10,000)
The backyard innovation category covers inventions by the general public that are not yet on the market but are at an advanced stage, with a prototype, if relevant. It includes inventions with the potential to make a difference to our lifestyles, environment, work and play, ranging from better domestic appliances to clever agricultural or construction technology.
Judging criteria
Australian Innovation Challenge entries in all categories will be judged against the following, equally-weighted criteria.
- excellence in science, technology or engineering
- likely positive economic, public good or environmental impact
- originality
- environmental sustainability
How to enter
You must submit your Australian Innovation Challenge entry so that it is received by midnight AEST on Wednesday, September 28, 2011.
Your entry must include a completed online entry form and the supplementary material outlined below. You must send the supplementary material from the same email address provided on the entry form. http://www.government-grant.com.au/
You can enter more than one project but you must complete separate entry forms and provide separate supplementary material for each project.
Each Australian Innovation Challenge project can be entered into only one category.
You must complete all sections of the Australian Innovation Challenge online entry form. In the summary/abstract field, describe your innovation, addressing the judging criteria. Explain how your innovation works, why it is needed, how it improves on existing technology or systems and how it is environmentally sustainable. (300 words)
Supplementary material for the professional categories (Categories 1–7)
When submitting your Australian Innovation Challenge entry form you must email the following supplementary material from the email address you listed on the entry form to innovation@theaustralian.com.au. Please send pdfs, not Word documents. The size limit on each pdf file is 4MB.
- a submission of between 1,000 and 2,000 words including:
- a summary/abstract describing your innovation (word limit 200)
- an outline of your role or each team member’s role (if applicable) in the project (word limit 100)
- a list of any grants awarded by government funding agencies or industry development corporations for the project entered (word limit 50)
- references of any peer review – such as publication in the scientific or technical literature or presentation at conferences – to which the innovation has been subjected (word limit 50)
Judging criteria
a. Excellence in science, technology or engineering (word limit 400)
Explain the problem you tackled and how you solved it. Outline the evidence that your innovation works.
b. Likely positive economic, public good or environmental impact (word limit 400)
Explain how your innovation will make a difference to people or the planet. Estimate the number of people who would benefit from it or the scale of the environmental dividends it would deliver. Estimate the cost to the users. Estimate the work, time and funding needed to take the innovation to commercialisation or adoption.
c. Originality (word limit 400)
Explain what makes your innovation novel.
d. Environmental sustainability (word limit 400)
Explain the green measures you built in to your innovation, or, in the case of the health and education categories, explain how your innovation will not give rise to any negative environmental impacts.
- reports from two referees knowledgeable of the innovation but not directly involved in the project. The referees must explain why they are qualified to comment on the innovation, and give independent assessments of it, addressing the judging criteria. (word limit 600 per report)
- your CV or, in the case of team entries, CVs of all team members (word limit 600 per CV)
- one or two scientific or technical papers that you have published on the innovation entered, or relevant conference presentations/abstracts, if available
Supplementary material Category 8 (Backyard Innovation)
When submitting your entry form you must email the following supplementary material from the email address you listed on the entry form to backyardinnovation@theaustralian.com.au.
- a maximum of two high resolution (300 dpi) photos of a prototype of your innovation
- technical drawings if available (maximum 2)
- your CV (if available) or, in the case of team entries, CVs of all team members. Please send pdfs, not Word documents. The word limit is 600 per CV. The size limit on each pdf file is 4MB. http://www.government-grant.com.au/
If you make it through the first stage of judging, you might be asked to send a prototype (if relevant) to Nationwide News Pty Ltd (The Australian) or, if necessary, present it at a judge’s visit. You will be notified of this request accordingly.
Click here to read the rules.
