Innovation 360 – 2010 – Challenge 2

Task 2: Good Governance

This week’s challenge (2) is focused on Good Governance and requires an innovative mind to crack.

At present there are three international legally binding conventions against corruption

• The 1996 Inter – American Convention against Corruption
• The 1997 OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions
• The 1999 council of Europe’s Criminal Law on Corruption

In your opinion, how can we position Nigeria’s young population to embrace and imbibe the tenets of these conventions to produce leaders for tomorrow that embody good governance principles?

About Innovation 360
Innovation 360 is designed to discover innovative minds across Nigeria; people who have the kind of ideas that will help solve challenging problems and move the country the next step up.

Innovation 360 is a competition designed in partnership with 4 UK Institutions – Kingston University, University of Northampton, University of Westminster and Coventry University – to showcase your innovative skills and lay the foundations for a great future. You could win a full scholarship to study a master’s degree in the UK worth over N3.5million naira.

If you’ve got what it takes, then get involved and join us on this adventure of creative discovery. Find out how the competition works and how to enter below.

The Competition
Innovation 360 is a 6 weeks national competition starting from Monday 15 November and ending 20 December.

Every 2 weeks, on Monday, (i.e. November 29, December 13 and December 27) we will unveil a new challenge to test your innovativeness and creativity.
How to Participate
If you believe you’ve got the solution to the week’s challenge, simply send the top lines of your idea in 160 characters to our SMS short code – 32326 by Wednesday of the first week (you can send in as many ideas as you want). We will send you a response text to confirm receipt of your idea.

The format for sending the text message should be: MailIdea e.g Mail I think Nigeria can go green by using energy efficient light bulbs…

Our in-house screeners will shortlist all SMS received down to the 30 best ideas by Monday of the second week. If yours is one of them, you then get to send in a 750 words description of your bright idea to us. This must come in by Wednesday of the second week.

The top 10 ideas are shortlisted and a telephone interview conducted. By the end of the second week, we will pick the top 5 ideas for the week that then go on to the finals.

This cycle takes place 3 times. At the end of the Third Task (after 6 weeks), we will have 20 shortlisted people who go on to the grand finale.

The grand finale will be a Board Interview in Lagos. All 20 participants get to face a Board comprising of high profile UK Alumni, UKBA and British Council representatives, with different individual and group tasks to test their creativity and innovativeness to the utmost.

At the end of this full day process, the Board will select the final winners for the competition.

KAAD Catholic Scholarships in Germany

The KAAD, by its German name in full known as Katholischer Akademischer Auslander-Dienst (the Catholic Academic Support Service for Foreign Students, Germany) has, since long, provided scholarships for young professionals in need of such support from countries around the world.

Who can apply?
For the scholarship programme 1 of KAAD you can apply if you:

* come from a developing or emerging country in Africa, Asia, the Middle East or Latin America
* have a university degree and professional experience from your home country
* want to acquire a master’s degree or a PhD at a German university or do a post-doctoral research project (2-6 months for established university lecturers) at a German university
* are a Catholic Christian (or general belong to a Christian denomination). Candidates from other religions can apply if they are proposed by Catholic partners and can prove their commitment to interreligious dialogue.

What does KAAD expect from you?
* Above-average performance in studies and research
* The orientation of your studies or research towards permanent reintegration in your home region (otherwise the scholarship is turned into a loan),
* Religious and social commitment (activities) and willingness to inter-religious dialogue
* German language skills before starting the studies (KAAD can provide a language course of max. 6 months in Germany).

Interested students and scholars are welcome to fill out this form and send it to Dr. Heinrich Geiger, Head, Asia Department,
Contact detail: Geiger@kaad.de
Moreinfo: http://kaad.de/1/scholarships

PTDF Scholarship 2010

The PTDF Scholarship for 2010 is on!
The only issue is the difficulty with laying hands on the scratch cards to register. I suggest you ask your friends across the country to check First Bank Branches close to them. I would like to suggest that the ptdf the employ interswitch payment platform for subsequent exercises. I hear that banks and cybercafes in some cities were selling the cards at 2 or 3 times the official rate of N1000.
Anyways, once you get your card, go here to apply.

World Bloggers Action Day: Climate Change

I just got the information from Chris Guillebeau‘s website that today is world bloggers day, and every blogger is meant to write about climate change. Well… I’ll simply post up what I sent to the innovation360 people.

Unless third world governments take an active role towards supporting the production of low energy consuming devices and their distribution and use across their regions, the dream of imbibing the use of green friendly technology cannot be attained. This is not for any fancy reason… other than COST. For low energy bulbs for instance, In Nigeria, they cost as much as 15 to 20 times a normal bulb. This has created a scenario where they are viewed as luxuries for the rich alone. The singular factor that even drove the market for the expensive green bulbs was the adoption of prepaid meters which began to create waste conscious electricity consumption to Nigerians, about 2 years ago.

Don’t get me wrong, I no it is not cheaper to go green. hardly. But the truth is, if there is a cost implication of preserving our planet, most of the third world is not enlightened enough to aspire to bearing the cost, neither can they afford to, in reality. How do you bother a man about a global cataclysm when he is not winning the fight against gnawing hunger in his belly, how do you make a man an advocate for green policies, when he is still fighting to institute good governance in his polity? Its classic Maslow.

Something to think about…. something to ponder. Till next year, at least I put my bid in for climate change. Cheers.

PS

Put off the light when you leave the room, save your bill, and the planet!!!