The 2023 BRICS Young Innovators Prize Competition for Entrepreneurs and Researchers

The 2023 BRICS Young Innovator Prize is a notable recognition of young talented entrepreneurs and researchers, whose remarkable innovations (inventions, products, applications, and services) will create a deep impact on the socio-economic, environmental, and condition of life in BRICS societies. The BRICS Young Innovator Prize is a forum for BRICS young scientists and entrepreneurs to share their finest practices in innovation and venturing.

This initiative was oriented in 2018, during South Africa’s BRICS Chairship.  A total of five installments of the BRICS Young Innovator Prize has been held successfully and it is now an essential stage for BRICS youths to show their innovative talents and strengthen exchanges and cooperation.  The winner of the Young Innovator Prize will be awarded through contests among the youths from BRICS countries.  The forthcoming 6^th BRICS Young Innovator Prize will be convened in person as part of the 7^th BRICS Young Scientist Forum which will be held from 31^ST of July, until the 3^rd of August 2023 in South Africa.

In accordance with the already established tradition of previous BRICS Chairships, South Africa will host a wide range of BRICS activities in-person leading up to and following the Summit.  One of which is the  6^th BRICS Young Innovator Prize. The award normally comes with a monetary prize, as well as recognition and exposure for the winning innovator and their work. Many past winners have gone on to achieve even greater success in their fields, and the prize has helped to raise awareness of the important work being done by young innovators in the BRICS societies.

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Minimum Requirements and Eligibility

• The Innovations shall focus on the following 5 thematic areas:
  • Modernizing manufacturing;
  • Modernizing agriculture;
  • Modernizing mining;
  • Digital and Circular economies;
• The innovations should emanate from universities, research institutes, or registered enterprises in line with a BRICS member country’s law;
• The project must be innovative and has been transformed from scientific and technological achievements;
• The innovation should be in a phase of limited product testing, discontinuous production, certification, or preparation of the product for market;
• The innovation should not infringe upon the intellectual property of any third party and the Intellectual Property Rights (including patent, standard, thesis, etc.) and must be owned by the project team members;
• The age of the applicant must be under 40 years and a citizen of a BRICS country; and
• Each applicant can only choose to compete in one project field for the awards.

Prizes and Assessment

• 1^st round of evaluation

The 1^st round of evaluation will be conducted by reviewing written documents of the applications submitted after the closing date of the 26^th May 2023.  Each member state will recommend applications to compete in the in-person event to be held in South Africa from 31 August 2023 till the 03^rd August 2023.

• Final evaluation

Projects will in this round be required to pitch, each project presentation will be limited to 10 minutes.  The jury will score all the final projects which will then be ranked in the order of their score.  The top 10 highest-scoring projects will be the award-winning projects and other projects will be the merit projects for the BRICS Young Innovator Prize.

• Prizes

First Place         – $ 25 000.00

Second Place     – $ 15 000.00

Third Place        – $ 10 000.00

Application Procedure:

• Applicants are to submit applications by email to brics@tia.org.za by the 26^th May 2023 Close of Business(16h00 CAT), with all supporting documents as per the application template.

Application Deadline: 26 May 2023.

The 2023 BRICS Young Innovators Prize Competition for Entrepreneurs and Researchers