A new initiative aimed at young people between the ages of 18 and 29, aims to promote entrepreneurship and youth employability, through the submission of creative, innovative and feasible proposals. This is “Innovatón 2021” contest, which will receive projects from four categories through its website until May 16th: education, ecotourism, agriculture and planet.
Four participants (one for each category) will be awarded US $ 6,000 as seed capital, a laptop, a 100% scholarship for a course of their choice from the LEAD University Business Essentials program, entrepreneurship training and mentoring by the experts from Fundación Caricaco, a digital marketing strategy by professionals from the Universidad Latina and connectivity to selected sites for six months.
In addition, they will have the opportunity to represent the country in the grand regional final of Innovatón, where they will compete with the other winners from Central America for an additional US $ 10,000 of seed capital to make their project a reality.
Young people make up half of the unemployed population
Data from the Continuous Employment Survey of the Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC) indicate that as of January of this year, 467,000 people were unemployed; 33% of them are young people between 15 and 24 years old and 25% are between 25 and 34 years old.
Sandra Jiménez, coordinator of the initiative, considers that to forge a better future, it is necessary to invest immediately in opening the doors to better opportunities for young people: “They must be, today more than ever, an engine of transformation and new ideas to promote the economic reactivation of our countries. It is a great satisfaction to officially launch Innovatón 2021 and see how, little by little, we consolidate alliances with different sectors to take concrete actions in favor of our young people”.
The selection process of the finalist proposals will be in charge of the Business Alliance for Development (AED), who will choose the 10 best initiatives for each category, following a table of criteria that includes factors such as: viability, innovation and impact on the community , among others.
The 40 finalist proposals will be presented virtually before a multisectoral jury, made up of prominent members of private companies, academia, NGOs, and government; who will have the mission of choosing the winning proposal by category.
