Solve for Tomorrow: Urban Environmental Protection

To participate in Challenges, you need to quickly register on our platform first. Then you can click on the 'participate' button.

There are no age or degree requirements. This challenge is open for every ambitious mind determined to make an impact with an innovative approach to the topic, no matter if you're a student, researcher, young professional or Startup. This challenge is conducted in English.

Remember your participation is not binding until you submit the submission template, and the qualification phase ends. You can always withdraw your submission until then. After the deadline, we will count you in. If you should not be able to take part after all, just contact us, we will find a way.

The prerequisite for participation in the challenge is that the participants have their residence or company headquarters in Germany, are matriculated at a German university or work in Germany. If none of these requirements are met, participation is unfortunately not possible(as the program requires regular presence on site).
We ask kindly for your understanding.
Please have a look at the other international ekipa innovation programs or challenges. The offer is large and diverse. You will certainly be able to implement your innovative ideas there.

Participate alone

You take part individually by clicking the button ‘Join now’ and then the option ‘Participate Alone’ in the following Pop Up. If you change your mind in the course of the Challenge and decide to team up, that’s not a problem. You can find out about your remaining options down below.

Participate as a Team

You already have people you want to participate with? Great! One of you has to click the button ’Join now’ and choose ‘Create your own team’. If you already have all the members you need, ignore the last question. What are the needs of your team? in the Pop Up. If you are open to letting new members in, fill it out so your team is open for requests. Now, all of your remaining team members can request to join the team you founded in the Tab ‘Teams’. Remember, they must be registered to join in. Also, every team member is equal, there is no leading position.

Important: If you want to participate as a team, every team member who wants to be considered needs to be a participant and registered via the platform.

Join existing Team

You know you want to participate as a team but you don’t have anyone in mind to participate with? Not a problem! Under the Tab 'Teams' you will find an overview of all the teams who are searching for members. Request to join if your skills match what they are looking for and good luck! You can apply for more than one team until you find the right one.

Not sure yet? Team-Matching-Channel!

You are unsure whether you want to take part and want to see whats out there first? Not a problem! We can connect you with participants seeking to found a team. You don’t need to be registered to request a matching. Just click the Team-Matching-Channel button next to the ‘join now’ button and you'll get access to our Matching-Channel on Slack. After matching, quickly register and follow the instructions.

For the submission, it is sufficient to enter your idea or solution approach in the guiding questions of our submission template and upload it on our platform. It doesn't have to be a fully developed concept with concrete implementation. A visualization of your approach (maybe even sketch-based) is sufficient – it should be as well developed as possible but appropriate to the time you have.

After the end of the deadline, the submissions will be reviewed by Samsung. Ten participants or teams will be selected and invited to participate in a (digital) Bootcamp. All participants will be informed about their participation until June 1, 11:59 p.m. CEST. After completion of the Bootcamp, a total of 5 participants or teams will qualify for the elaboration phase of the challenge – see Tab Timeline.

Accelerator

In order to achieve a long-term impact and to establish not only ideas but innovations, the Challenge is only the starting point.

The best three teams and thus the winners of the Challenge will be invited to Samsung's own accelerator: the IMPACT phase.

There you will be supported by Samsung and its technologies, ekipa, technical coaching partners as well as external experts and mentors for 6 months to further develop your approaches and to make ideas a reality.

The success story of the startup Heartucate, which made it through the first round of Solve for Tomorrow and the IMPACT phase, can be found at the following link on Samsung's global website.

Prize Money

The winners should also not go home without a prize. Therefore, prize money totaling € 22,500 will be distributed so that you can continue to work on your solutions. This will be divided among the three best teams or participants as follows:

• 1st place: €10,000
• 2nd place: €7,500
• 3rd place: €5,000

Please note that the payment of the prize money is linked to the participation in the IMPACT phase.

Product prizes

In addition, Samsung will reward each finalist with Samsung products. The individual products are not yet finalized and will be communicated during the qualification-phase, here you can find the already decided product categories:

• The 10 semi-finalists will receive as part of the bootcamp: USB-C Thumb Drive
• The 5 finalists will also receive at the start of the elaboration phase: 2x Galaxy Notebooks and 2x Galaxy Smartphones per Team

At the start of the IMPACT phase, the winning teams will also have the opportunity to receive further technical equipment from Samsung.

• The 3 winning Teams will additionally receive: 2x Displays per Team

We are connecting innovative minds.

We open up the potentials of the digital generation through our innovation projects, programs and challenges to develop sustainable and future-proof solutions for the major challenges of our time.

In this rapidly changing world, we want to shape the change creatively and sustainably across industries and borders with honest openness and new and holistic perspectives. To facilitate this, we are creating an innovative ecosystem by bringing together young, wild and bright minds – students, researchers, young professionals, and startups – with the power of established organizations and institutions to enable innovative solutions for business and society.

We scheduled a Q&A MeetUp for you in which our project team will answer your questions regarding ekipa and the Samsung Challenge.
It takes place every Thursday from 4:30-5:00 pm (CEST). To join the Meeting you just need to click here within the scheduled time of the meeting.

We provided a Team Matching Channel on Slack for you. If you're looking for potential team mates you just need to follow the Team Matching Button on the platform. Once you are on our Slack Channel you can search for the #sft-urban-envrionment-protection Channel and click join.
To find team mates we recommend you write a short profile into the chat containing: Who are you? What is your background? What are your skills? What are looking for?