How to participate

  • Select the category you fall under
  • Fill the participant profile form
  • Submit your essay before the deadline in one or more of the proposed 3 themes.

Categories and Eligibility

To be eligible for the contest, you must fall under on of the following three categories:
  • Secondary/Highschool: Secondary school students in Africa and youth of secondary school age in Africa. 
  • University: University students in Africa and youth of university age in Africa. 
  • General: Students and anyone interested anywhere in the world. This includes recent university graduates, young professionals in the field, or others who have something to contribute to the discussion on development.

Rules

  • Each essay must be accompanied with a one page abstract. 
  • Each participant can submit one essay per question.
  • Each participant can answer more than one question.
  • Each participant can enter into only one category.
  • Each participant will be required to give proof of eligibility for the category he/she applied for, if selected as a finalist.
  • High school and University categories only include youth and students studying and/or living in Africa.
  • Essays should be individual work.
  • Essays should not be longer than 4000 words and should be 1.5 line-spaced.
  • Essays can only be submitted through the designated website (www.essay.gt-idea.org).
  • Essays can be submitted in MS Word (*.doc), Rich Text Format (*.rtf), Plain Text (*.txt) and Portable Document Format (*.pdf).
  • Essays can only be submitted in English
  • Essays must present original and unpublished work. Any kind of plagiarism will result in automatic disqualification. References and quotes must be clearly marked. All essays will be screened by software to verify plagiarism.
  • Essays will be blind reviewed and the decision of the jury is final.
  • GT-IDEA reserves the right to publish and/or make available all submitted essays.