Call for Applications: U21/PwC Innovation Challenge!

Background
Universitas 21 (U21) and Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC), two globally-focused organizations, have come together to offer unique professional development opportunities for U21’s network of graduate students through the Innovation Challenge competition. The University of Hong Kong is one of the founding members of Universitas 21.

Who can take part?
The competition is open to any registered graduate student in one of U21’s member universities (this includes students from taught and research masters programmes, MPhils etc., and PhDs). Students on joint PhDs between two U21 members are eligible to apply. 

What’s new?
This year’s Innovation Challenge will focus on collaboration and team work to enable students to develop their problem-solving skills and personal/ professional networks beyond the lifespan of the competition. The competition this year will have 2 phases:

For the Individual Challenge (Phase 1), entrants are asked to submit (to their university) a  three-minute response to a challenge question via a video to the challenge. Each U21 member university will be expected to run their internal rounds of the competition as normal and submit up to 2 entries. 

The entries submitted by the universities to U21 will be put through into the Team Challenge (Phase 2). U21 will group all these final entries into teams. These teams will respond to a second challenge question set by PwC, themed around COP27. This will be communicated via an online briefing session which entrants must attend. The teams will work collaboratively on a response which they will then pitch to a judging panel consisting of representatives from U21, PwC and PwC’s clients. All phases will be completed virtually. 

The group with the winning pitch will receive career coaching sessions (virtual) with the PwC Academy as their prize.

The Individual Challenge Question
To what extent should governments support the private sector in managing and prioritizing their Environmental, Societal and Governance (ESG) agenda? 

PwC’s Annual CEO Survey reported that, despite rising interest in the Environmental, Societal and Governance agenda, strategy is still primarily driven by business metrics. From your own point of view, address the extent to which you think governments should support the private sector in this way, and what form you think the support should take.  

The question for the Team Challenge Phase (Phase 2) will be circulated to successful finalists from the Individual Challenge (Phase 1) after they have been grouped into teams. 

Prizes 
There will be one winning team from the final pitches to the judging panel who will be awarded with highly-rated bespoke career coaching with the PwC Academy. All elements of the competition will take place online/remotely.

Internal deadline for individual Challenge (Phase 1) video submission from students to HKU: Tue 20 September 2022 
Internal selection to take place beginning 21 September 2022

Deadline for entries from HKU to U21/PwC: Fri 30 September 2022
Groups for team activity announced: Mon 10 October 2022
Final pitches to judging panel: 5-9 December 2022
Winners to be announced: Week commencing 12 December 2022

All applications should be sent to the Graduate School gradsch@hku.hk together with the following personal particulars: Student ID, Name, Curriculum (e.g. PhD, MPhil), Email address.  If the video is too large to be sent via email, please provide a private link (i.e. Google Drive).

Rules for submission: 
•  Entries to be submitted for final adjudication are limited to 2 per U21 institution and should be submitted to U21 via an agreed university contact. Students should not submit their videos directly to U21. 
•  Submissions must be via video format, either an MP4 file or .MOV. Files sent in any other format will not be accepted. 
•  Video presentations are strictly limited to 3 minutes and competitors exceeding this will be disqualified. 
•  Entrants will be judged on their presentation skills and they must feature in the video. 
•  Group submissions are not accepted. 
•  It is permissible to use a maximum of one slide per presentation. 
•  The 3-minute audio must be continuous – no edits or breaks etc. 
•  Presentations are to be spoken word only (e.g. no poems, raps or songs). No additional electronic media (e.g. sound and video files) are permitted within the video recording. 
•  Props are not allowed. 
•  The decision of the adjudicating panel is final. 
•  Winners will be expected to provide a report after the competition to reflect on their experience.

Further information
Please visit the websites of U21 for further details of the U21/PwC Innovation Challenge, including winning videos from the previous rounds, competition handbook, Intellectual Property, Information for Students and FAQs.

For queries, please contact the Graduate School (email: gradsch@hku.hk).