With the second annual Canvas My Campus contest, two Silicon Valley tech companies, Prezi and Tilt, are offering two university students the chance of a lifetime to hang out with tech industry experts in San Francisco next year… with all flights and accommodation paid for.
All you have to do to clinch this golden opportunity is create a pitch in Prezi that shows what dream you have for change on your campus, in your community, or even around the world, and what support you would need to make it come to life.
The top 10 finalists will be featured on Tilt to help them raise funding for their ideas.
As for the top two (one chosen by popular vote and one by staff selection), they will be flown to San Francisco in the US to meet the Prezi and Tilt teams, where they will be given the chance to present and receive feedback on their ideas.
Ashley Whitlatch, Global Education Relations Manager for Prezi spoke to Anthill and below is what she had to share about the Canvas My Campus contest.
Why did you start the Canvas My Campus contest?
We wanted to create a contest that any university student in the world could get pumped about. Everyone has amazing ideas that they want to see come to life, and our product gives them a voice for those ideas, and this contest gives them a platform to showcase them.
We updated the prompt this year to reflect our company focus on providing amazing software to business users worldwide, so it was a natural fit to gear the contest towards business students that are inspired to tackle the world’s social challenges.
Why university students in particular and not anybody else?
Every company needs a focus, and we are excited to engage university business students as they naturally grow into our most engaged business users upon graduation.
We have an entire EDU team that focuses on other avenues for engagement with students from all ages, so this is just one slice of our overall programs and efforts in education.
What tips do you have for applicants out there on how best to raise the chances of their pitches being selected?
For our staff favourite winner, we are looking for creative, but attainable ideas.
We want to see an individual or team that has really thought through all of the challenges, and has proposed solutions to the social change challenge they want to tackle.
So ultimately, it’s about having an inspiring team, an achievable idea, and a well developed plan for execution.