2009 Global Innovation Tournament

For Immediate Release

Three Students From Dunedin Compete At The 2009 Global Innovation Tournament

23 November 2009 – University of Otago students William Horton, Agnieszka Nazaruk, and Logan Elliott are competing in a most unusual global competition: they had just eight days to create an innovative solution to a specific challenge using very limited resources, and to convey their results in a short video posted on YouTube.

The competition is the Global Innovation Tournament, organised by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program at Stanford University. This year’s competition is aimed at tackling one of the world’s most pressing problems: the global recession. Hundreds of institutions in dozens of countries have been challenged to come out with creative ideas on how to ‘Make Saving Money Fun!’

In association with the team at PocketSmith.com, the three students imagined a web platform allowing people from all around to world to share their videos showing how they are saving money by challenging their spending habits.

“We believe it’s a great opportunity to make financial education fun and compelling” says William Horton. The three students had the idea of creating a fictional character representing money. As Agnieszka explains, “Seeing money as a living person brings a completely new understanding and perspective to the importance of saving money while making it interesting at the same time”. Logan describes the nature of the videos. "We are trying to create awareness and challenge people to become more aware of these dangerous situations in which people simply waste their money. That is how we came up with the idea of the ‘Crazy Savers Global Challenge’".

The ‘Crazy Savers Global Challenge’ is accessible at http://crazysavers.heroku.com. People are invited to upload 30 second videos illustrating their ideas to save money. The most creative and imaginative videos will be rewarded with free PocketSmith Premium accounts to be won by popular votes.

The local winners of the Global Innovation Tournament will be announced during Global Entrepreneurship Week, November 16-22, and global winners will be announced online on Thursday, December 3, on http://www.unleashingideas.org.

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