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Chemonics Technology For Development Contest

How has technology helped to enhance your project’s results and improved people’s lives? Share your experience to amplify your impact.

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Form: Experiences
Form: New Ideas
Summary

Overview

The Future of Development: Integrating Technology for Impact

Chemonics is refocusing efforts on boosting the power of technology to uncover game-changing solutions that can enhance our development impact in the most efficient way. Through this company-wide innovation contest, we are seeking successful experiences from our global workforce to tell us what technology has been used in past or current Chemonics’ projects that significantly enhanced project’s outcomes, and improved people’s lives. Also, we want to capture ideas on which technologies our staff would invest in if they had the opportunity.

We are defining technology as a broad term that refers to tools and machines that may be used to solve real-world problems. It may include simple tools, such as a pulley or phones; more complex machines, such as irrigation wheels or drones; or virtual technology, such as computer software (machine learning or virtual reality). 

Share ideas with your peers, be recognized for your work, and have the chance to win prizes!

 


Guidelines

Our goals for this innovation challenge are to:
 

  • Connect with peers and learn from others’ experiences and ideas to benefit fellow projects' implementation, as well as the development community as a whole
  • Inventory successful experiences using technology within Chemonics to enhance current and future project performance and others throughout the development community
  • Identify emerging applications of technologies that could be tested in our projects

What are we looking for in a submission?

We are interested in hearing the full range of Chemonics’ experiences and ideas on the use of technology to enhance our projects’ results and development impact. There are two categories in which employees can participate: the Successful Experiences category, which focuses on the use of technology in an existing project, and the New Ideas category, which is for potential technology applications that have not yet been tested in a Chemonics project.

The submission can be a solution or approach that has accelerated impact in your project or a creative use of an existing technology that addresses development challenges. We are defining technology as a broad term that refers to tools and machines that may be used to solve real-world problems. It may include simple tools, such as a pulley or phones; more complex machines, such as irrigation wheels or drones; or virtual technology, such as computer software (machine learning or virtual reality). 

The application can include a technology developed and/or used by a Chemonics’ project or by a project affiliate (subcontractor, grantee, and partner). Participants can submit more than one entry if desired, and may enter both the “successful experiences” and “ideas” categories with separate submissions.

 

Eligibility:

To be eligible to travel to DC, individuals must be full- or part-time home-office or project-based employees. Subcontractor employees, temps, and interns are not eligible but can participate on the crowd voting. Teams should recognize the participation of 3rd party organizations, such as subcontractors, grantees, and other partners that were involved in the technology design or application during project implementation, but they won’t be eligible to submit an application on their own.

 

Prizes:

Chemonics will award the following prizes:

For all participants:

  • A Certificate of Recognition

For winners in the Successful Experiences category:

  • The winning project will be invited to share its experience at an event in the D.C. office
    • Travel and accommodations are provided by Chemonics’ home office for up to 4 project representatives
  • Catered breakfast to the winning project in the field and/or winning RBU/division
  • Blog post profiling finalist projects and their successful experience in using technology, drafted by the Knowledge, Innovation, and Technology (KIT) team
  • Meetings with Chemonics leadership and the USAID Global Development Lab, among others

For winners in the New Ideas category:

  • The individual or team with the winning idea will be invited to share its experience at an event in the D.C. office
    • Travel and accommodations are provided by Chemonics’ home office for up to 4 representatives
  • Catered breakfast to the winning project in the field and/or winning RBU/division
  • Meetings with Chemonics leadership and the USAID Global Development Lab, among others 
  • Opportunity to develop the idea into a detailed concept note and test the proposed solution in the field with the support of KIT

How do I win?

To be eligible for an award, your design proposal must, at minimum:

  • Satisfy the Judging Scorecard requirements
  • Thoughtfully address the Submission Form questions
  • Be scored higher than your competitors!

A diverse group of Chemonics staff will review and score each submission based on the criteria outlined below. Each submission will be independently reviewed and scored by three reviewers. The highest-scoring submission in each category will be selected as the winners.

 

Judging Scorecard:

The judges will take the following criteria into account:

  1. Chemonics’ successful experiences using technology in our past or active projects (“Successful Experiences”):

Criteria

Description

Impact of the approach

How did the technology allow the project’s activities be more effective, cost-effective, and sustainable? Applicants should state the improvement, for whom, and how the solution has helped achieved project outcomes and improved people’s lives

Replicability / Scalability

Could this technology (or elements of it) be implemented in other regions or countries? Or by other projects? How could it be scaled up in the country in which it is currently being implemented?

Viability

Viability and robustness of the solution’s functionality, supported by proof or demonstration of concept, pilot/test trials, and/or simulations to substantiate that the system is/was operable, cost effective and feasible. 

Crowd Voting

As ranked by Chemonics’ employees (40% of the final score)


B. Emerging applications of technologies in our projects (“New Ideas”):

 

Criteria 

Description

Innovativeness of your idea

How would your emerging application of technology allow the project to be more effective, cost-effective, and sustainable? How innovative is your proposed use of the technology? What are the expected outcomes?

Replicability / Scalability

Could this technology (or elements of it) be implemented in other regions or countries? Or by other projects? How could it be scaled up, if at all?

Viability

Viability and robustness of the solution’s functionality, supported by demonstration of concept, and/or simulations to substantiate that the system could be operable, cost-effective and feasible

Crowd Voting

As ranked by Chemonics’ employees (40% of the final score)

How do I enter?

  1. Click the orange ACCEPT CHALLENGE button above to register
  2. Once you have registered, you will see two new orange buttons. Select the appropriate submission form:
    1. Submitting a technology already implemented or in process of implementation? Use the Forms: Experiences submission form.
    2. Submitting a new idea? Use the Forms: Ideas submission form.

Rules:

Registration and Submissions:

Submissions must be made online (only), via upload to the HeroX.com website, on or before 11:59 pm ET on August 2, 2017. No late submissions will be accepted.

 

Click ACCEPT CHALLENGE above to register for the Contest and begin your application – you will be able to make edits to your application post-submission, until the deadline.

Selection of Winners:

Based on the winning criteria, prizes will be awarded per the Judging Criteria section above. In the case of a tie, the winner(s) will be selected based on the highest votes from the judges.

Judging:

The final determination of the winners will be made at the sole discretion of Chemonics. Scores and feedback from Chemonics will not be shared.

**Please note that this is an internal competition, and this link should not be shared outside of the company.**

Questions? Please email   

 

 

 

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Form: Experiences

Form: Experiences

Technology Successful Experiences

You will use this submission form if you are submitting a technology that is already implemented or in process of implementation. If you are submitting an idea for a new technology, use the Technology Ideas submission form.

All submissions must be made via HeroX.com

  1. Click the orange ACCEPT CHALLENGE button above to register
  2. Once you have registered, you will see two new orange buttons. Select the Technology Successful Experiences submission form

 

Submission Form

About the Team (PRIVATE):

  1. Full Name(s)
  2. Position(s)
  3. Contact information for each team member
  4. Chemonics RBU
    1. Select One: Afghanistan; Asia; East and Southern Africa; Europe and Eurasia; Executive Division; Finance and Accounting; Global Health Division; Human Resources; Information and Technology; Latin America and the Caribbean; Middle East; Risk Management; Strategic Solutions and Communications; Supply Chain Solutions; West Africa and Haiti; Other
  5. Project Name
  6. Affiliated Technical Practices
    1. Select Multiple: Agriculture and Food Security; Education and Youth; Democracy and Governance; Economic Growth and Trade; Environment and Natural Resources; Gender Equality and Social Inclusion; Health; Peace, Stability and Transition; Supply Chain Solutions; Water, Energy and Sustainable Cities
  7. Tell us about your experience
    1. What was the development problem the project was trying to solve?
    2. What makes your project implementation unique?

Technical Details (VISIBLE TO CHEMONICS EMPLOYEES):

  1. What country(s) was the technology implemented in?
  2. What dates did the technology implementation take place? 
  3. Please describe the technology that was used to enhance the project’s results and development impact. (4000 characters)
    1. In as much detail as possible, describe all of the technical components and tools included in the use of the technology: technology itself, affiliate organizations, end user, gender considerations, timing, cost/benefit of designing and adopting the technology.
  4. Please describe the outcomes of using the above-mentioned technology (higher development impact, better decision making, cost-effectiveness, other). (2000 characters)
    1. Wherever possible, include all relevant time or financial data available.
  5. Were there any challenges in the implementation of the technology? How did you overcome them? Please describe any lessons learned. (2000 characters)
  6. Is this application of technology project-specific, or could it be replicated to enhance other projects? (2000 characters)
    1. Describe potential use cases for this technical deployment to be replicated across future Chemonics projects
  7. Supporting Documents - Visual Aids. Is there any evidence, reports or assessment that supports the outcomes described? Drawings or schematics supporting the method(s) of your technology, or other supporting documents can be attached.
    1. PDF upload, 5-page maximum
  8. If you’d like to record a video summary of your concept, please link to it here.
    1. Upload your video to Youtube or Vimeo and share the link here. Ensure the video does not require a password.
Form: New Ideas