The World Summit Awards are a unique awards system, selecting and promoting local digital innovation with high impact on improving society. Is a non-monetary award system with a focus on sustainable knowledge transfer through a worldwide network. Winners benefit not from a one-time financial reward, but a lifelong partnership and integration.
The World Summit Awards are also a nomination based award system. To participate you need to be nominated by a WSA National Expert as the best national digital application in one of the 8 categories. The nominations to WSA are possible through national contests and national Expert panel selection. Each country can only nominate one project/solution per category.
Through this high-level selection system, please be aware that every country has their own deadlines for the call. The generally communicated WSA deadline is the timeframe of the global call and communicates the last possible date of a nomination by the national expert panel.
WSA Young Innovators
The World Summit Awards promotes and awards also young innovators, who developed a digital application tackling the UN SDGs. The WSA Young Innovators is a special recognition for young social entrepreneurs under 26 years of age, using ICTs to take action on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
Together with the WSA winners of each year, they are honored as outstanding digital innovation with social impact.
The WSA Young Innovators Award is an open call. The participation in the WSA Young Innovators is open to any entrepreneur, company, student group or project team – at least one of the founding members and the majority of the team must be under the age of 26 (born on or after January 1, 1993).
CATEGORIES
WSA categories reflect the UN WSIS action lines and are updated regularly to meet the development of the markets. For the edition of the World Summit Awards 2019 the categories are:
- GOVERNMENT & CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT – services | open data | democratic participation
- HEALTH & WELL BEING – medical care | sport | lifestyle
- LEARNING & EDUCATION – knowledge | science | skills
- ENVIRONMENT & GREEN ENERGY – climate | sustainable resources | agriculture
- CULTURE & TOURISM – heritage | entertainment | subcultures
- SMART SETTLEMENTS & URBANIZATION – mobility |productive work | sustainable living
- BUSINESS & COMMERCE – innovative services | security | finance | marketing
- INCLUSION & EMPOWERMENT – diversity | gender | justice | human rights
TIMELINE
APPLICATIONS FOR THE WSA YOUNG INNOVATORS 2019 WILL BE OPEN AGAIN IN APRIL 2019!
WSA RULES & CONDITIONS
The World Summit Award (WSA) looks for digital applications that have a strong impact on society in one of the 8 WSA categories. WSA focusses on content depth, strategic value and local impact of a product.
By submission of a project, producers accept the rules of the WSA contests as stated on the WSA RULES & CONDITIONS page.
All submitters to the WSA have to abide by the rules and regulations mentioned in the UN Declaration on Human Rights. Submissions therefore which encourage war, the exercise of violence, fraud, racism or discrimination will not be accepted and eliminated. Similarly, submissions that violate international copyright provisions will be excluded.
WSA cannot be held liable for accepted submissions and their contents and rights.
> Please click here to access to the complete terms of the WSA RULES & CONDITIONS.
BENEFITS
Combining an ongoing series of international events and activities with a global network of start-ups, social entrepreneurs, mentors, jurors, speakers, experts, government leaders, academia and civil society, WSA is an international platform for cutting edge examples on how ICTs can have an impact on society.
Running 15 years by now, WSA has become a quality seal for digital content with societal impact in over 180 participating countries.
> Learn more about the WSA benefits for Winners and Nominee’s
HOW TO APPLY
Find out who your WSA National Expert is. Then you can contact the WSA office and them will be happy to introduce you to your WSA National Expert. Once you have contacted your expert, they will go through the steps you will need to take in order to qualify for national selection with you.
Some countries also offer application through a national contest.
The application procedure for the WSA & WSA Young Innovators requires detailed information on your productthat you have to provide in the WSA Database. All producer and project information in the WSA Database must, however, be in English to make the application easier for the international jury to evaluate and process and hence promote your project the best.
> Learn more about how to apply & to provide this information for World Summit Award!
> Learn more about how to apply & to provide this information for WSA Young Innovators!