Entries are now open for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge Award 2011 worth $100,000 in prize money aimed at supporting the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.
Buckminster Fuller Challenge: Program Goals
The Program’s guiding objective is to catalyze wide-spread change in the understanding and approach to solving complex global problems. To achieve this, the program seeks to:
- Create a rigorous, transformational process for entry in which applicants grapple deeply with a unique set of criteria.
- Promote and disseminate an integrated, comprehensive, systems-based approach to the design of solutions.
- Highlight and reward exemplary strategies which embody this approach.
- Accelerate the implementation of these solutions.
Target Group
The program attracts an international, interdisciplinary pool of participants tackling a vast array of pressing problems in hundreds of countries around the world. The core participants don’t look to politicians & bureaucrats for answers. They exemplify the extraordinary spirit of individual initiative and ingenuity and include whole systems pioneers, social entrepreneurs, artist/scientist/designers, next-gen change-agents, sustainability educators, and concerned citizens.
Eligibility
Individuals and/or teams may submit no more than 1 (one) entry for consideration. Entries will be accepted if the individual and/or team members:
- Are 18 years of age or older.
- Maintain a current and valid form of identification appropriate to country of residence.
- Submit entry in English.
- Follow the submission process completely and on time.
- Are available to be contacted by email or telephone at any point in the evaluation process, and are available (if requested) for a site visit by a member of the evaluation committee.
Entry Criteria
Winning the Buckminster Fuller Challenge will require more than a great stand-alone innovation. If for example, your solution emphasizes a new design, material, process, service, tool, technology, or any combination, it is essential that it be part of an integrated strategy dealing with key social, economic, environmental, policy and cultural issues.
Entries must be:
- Comprehensive — applies a whole systems approach to all facets of the design and development process; aims to simultaneously address multiple goals, requirements, conditions and issues;
- Anticipatory — factoring in critical future trends and needs as well as projected impacts of implementation in the short and long term;
- Ecologically responsible — reflecting nature’s underlying principles while enhancing the Earth’s life-support systems;
- Feasible — relying on current know-how, technology and existing resources;
- Verifiable — able to withstand rigorous empirical testing;
- Replicable — able to scale and adapt to a broad range of conditions.
The winning strategy will integrate all these criteria into a powerful catalyst having the potential to play a significant role in the transition to an equitable and sustainable future for all.
Last date for submission of entries is October 24, 2011
For more information and details, you can visit this link.
