Ever wished to make a change on campus? Have a creative idea you’d like to see implemented? Your time is now.
The University of Utah has developed a new competition to collect ideas for fostering creativity on campus. The university’s goal is “to progress to the forefront of innovation, creativity, and foward thinking,” and become a “creative campus”.
In order to accomplish this great goal, the university has launched a website http://www.Spark.utah.edu to enable students, faculty and staff to submit their own creative ideas.
If you have an idea on how to improve campus by way of exciting events, inspiring programs, or other new initiatives for fostering creativity at the U, support this creative movement by submitting your idea. If your idea is implemented, you could win $300.
The process for this competition is as follows:
1. Collect Ideas: Submit your ideas with a brief description, image (if you have one), who it’s for and what the impact will be.
2. Rate & Discuss Ideas: Once posted, ideas are discussed and rated. You can ask questions about other submitted ideas, clarify things about your own, and assign ratings to each idea you view. As you participate, you’ll gain points and rank higher on the “community leader board”.
3. Identify Top Ideas: Once a group of ideas has attained enough rankings, the top five for each challenge will be promoted to the next level. Each semester, the idea originator will be asked to present their concept to an internal review committee. Give a great presentation, and you’ll be chosen to move forward.
4. Internal Review: Each remaining idea will be put through a three-step process. First, the committee will ask for further community, University leadership and other stakeholder input. Second, they’ll research each idea for feasibility, cost and impact. Third, they’ll develop the idea further and create any necessary branding for final implementation.
5. Implementation: Once the idea is refined, prototyped and packaged, it’s ready for release. The idea will mostly start as a prototype, and then move on to a larger scale.
The winner will see their idea improve the way we live, work, and study at the university. The originator will receive the pleasure of seeing their idea transform the university for the better.
So what have you got to lose? Put yourself up to the challenge and start submitting. But be quick, the competition closes April 26th at 5:30 p.m.