Students, Prep Your Entries for Planet Forward Storyfest 2016!

October 27, 2015

Print This Article Share it With Friends

(George Washington University) Already dense urban populations are growing. What will tomorrow's smart cities look like? How can they be sustainable?

By 2050, nearly 70% of the world's population will be in urban areas, according to the UN. This surge will affect such basic necessities as food and water, plus everything from mobility to infrastructure.

Planet Forward Storyfest 2016 is looking for stories about innovative ideas and solutions to help manage this urban growth. Your contest entry should address these questions:

What innovations will help cities develop sustainably?

How does it work?

What difference can it make?

There's lots going on in urban sustainability. Mobility, the built environment, lifestyle, energy, food, water, conservation, resilience, policy, agriculture and more. Your story, from your community, can inform and inspire. And be a winner.

Choose the medium that best conveys the story you’re sharing — audio, visual, video, text or a combination. Judging is based the quality of the information and production, creativity in the presentation, the impact of the storytelling and the scalability of the innovation presented.

Entries will be featured on planetforward.org and the winners will announced at the Planet Forward Summit at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., in April 2016.

This year’s prize winners went to ROME to present their ideas to world leaders. Where will next year’s winners go?

Ready to enter?

Post your piece. (Note: We must approve this piece before you will be able to receive your link, so be sure to do this well ahead of the deadline.)
Once your work is posted on planetforward.org, grab the link to your piece, which you'll need to enter the contest.
Complete your contest entry form and submit. Completed contest entry form must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. ET on Feb. 29, 2016.

Questions?

Please contact storyfest@planetforward.org.

2016 Submission Guidelines:

Your story can be told through whatever medium you find most powerful or compelling — that can be audio, visual, video, text or any combination therein, provided it can be posted to the PlanetForward.org website.
Stories must be new content to the Planet Forward website (posted after Oct. 22, 2015), and created and submitted by a currently enrolled graduate or undergraduate college student* at www.planetforward.org/shareyourstory by 11:59 p.m. ET on Feb. 29, 2016; the “tag” field must include “storyfest2016” and answer the contest’s question in the “Describe Your Idea” section.
All entrants MUST complete a contest entry form, to be filled out online.
All submissions must be original work, produced by you (see note below about Team Entries). Any data points, facts or claims must be backed and cited through reliable sources.
- Team entries: While team members may be recognized, awards/prizes will be distributed to the official submitter.
Submissions to Planet Forward Storyfest can be original material created for the contest OR items created for classes, student media, other contests, etc., so long as it is new content on our site, as of Oct. 22, 2015.
Entrants are limited to a maximum of three submissions.
Quality and length of submissions:
- Audio and video submissions should be HD.
- Written submissions should not exceed 1,000 words.
- Photo submissions should be original work and a minimum of 72 dpi.