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Tus Ideas Valen is a non-profit civil association based on volunteering, which contributes to creating a culture of innovation in a broad sense at the level of young people and teachers of secondary and primary education in our country.
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Since 2005 we have called for an annual
contest of innovative projects that, once awarded, receive support for their
total or partial realization. More than 6500 young people between 13 and 29
have participated in our competitions, and 650 have been awarded representing
about 150 projects.
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Tus Ideas
Valen seeks to incorporate all young people into the innovative circuit without
prior experience in project formulation so that the country can enrich itself
with their talents and include in the medium term more intelligent work to
national production in the broadest sense. At the same time, we promote a model
of social action committed, allowing the winners to join as volunteers to
continue developing the tasks of dissemination of the calls as in support of the
awarded projects.
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By stimulating project work, we collaborate
with innovative teachers to motivate students and give them the real
opportunity to showcase their talents and then make their projects reality to
generate examples that stimulate other young people in a virtuous circle.
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Tus Ideas Valen aspires to contribute to the
development of a better educational system that is based more on projects and
on knowing how to solve challenges than on the traditional method based on
subjects that teach isolated content.
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Your Ideas Valen is a valuable tool that from
civil society energizes potentially innovative human resources within the
education system (mainly in secondary education).
The beneficiaries are young people between 13 and 29 years old and also middle school teachers from all over our country who participate in our annual contest of innovative projects with a strong social impact. By participating in the concourse and being rewarded, they have access to the possibility of receiving support for all the time required to make possible the total or partial realization of your innovative project.
Since 2005, more than 6500 people have
participated, and more than 650 members of different project teams awarded.
We measure
the impact through the quantity and quality of the projects presented annually
in our contest. From the initial 30, we have passed an average of 150 projects
each year. At the same time, the quality of them has been growing
progressively.
We also
measure the effects by remembering the brand Tus Ideas Valen in public in
general and the impact on the press of the news we generate.
Finally, we estimate the influence through how
the projects that we promote after the winners are transformed into reality and
with it an example to follow.
We do not give funds. Still, we manage at the
public or private level the possibility that they support the realization of
the projects, and the sponsors can join the innovative spirit of the
initiative.
Our project
places innovation not as an end in itself but as a tool for young people to
broaden their horizons, make creative use of their imagination, display their
knowledge, curiosity, and potential to realize what they project.
We see innovation as a clearly rational way of
standing up to reality and its challenges in all spheres of life in society. We
aim to promote an innovative attitude in every aspect and not only in the
technological one that is mostly associated with innovation.
The objective
is to generate innovation with a favorable social impact in our country
and communities.
The contest
requires innovative projects with a beneficial social impact.
Participants are students of the basic cycle of secondary school and
university students until 29 years old.
Since 2010 we
summon the students in the category of best school blog and then in the types
of energy efficiency and sustainable management of water resources.
Tus Ideas
Valen is in itself an innovative proposal because it rewards not only
technological innovation but also incorporates various topics such as urban
planning, health, sports, human rights, and more in an integrative vision of
human activity.
Tus Ideas Valen supports award-winning
projects with technical advice, qualified interviews, and links with
institutions and companies with no time limit to accompany the innovators we
serve, which often takes a long time to find support and the way of the
implementation of the projects.
Throughout
our trajectory, we have seen how many projects have become a reality, and
receiving the gratitude of their impulses is an incomparable stimulus to
continue on this path towards more exceptional achievements.
Tus Ideas
Valen is a civil association based on volunteering and low budget; both are
part of the project philosophy. We believe that it is not spending on
organizations with large bureaucratic structures that can obtain the best
results for the money invested.
Also, our vision includes raising awareness
that social innovation is something of everyone, including technological
innovation there. We have worked intensively using free internet resources for
communications and dissemination.
We have also reached agreements with the
National Television of Uruguay to broadcast spots of the calls since 2017. The
estimated value of the 2017 campaign was 1,500,000 pesos. Our budget is, on
average, 6000 dollars a year.
We are aware that as we have made significant
progress on the path to reach many of our initial objectives, we have to
find ways to improve the dissemination, and it is also necessary to have
more human resources for supporting tasks.
And project
monitoring. That is why we see it essential to have financing that allows us to
achieve the above and also thinks about the possibility of replicating the
experience in other Latin American countries.
We aspire to
be able to replicate our project in the region because the experience has shown
that it is possible to do that in our country and because we believe it is a
valuable tool that can help to development with equity in the region.
It offers the
possibility of living the experience of believing in one's own forces and
fruitfully developing actions of responsible and committed citizenship. It
promotes specific learning and the development of scientific knowledge and in
other areas.
TIV is an
independent organization where young people have a place to grow to innovate
and to manage as citizens the improvement of society.
TIV has been
an interlocutor between young innovators and entrepreneurs with their ideas
providing unlimited support in time according to their governments, connecting
them with specialists, giving them technical support, qualified interviews with
authorities and companies, and access to workshops.
We aspire to have more resources to improve
the dissemination and diagnosis that we will reach youth and teachers of our
country through awareness workshops in the study centers, innovation workshops with
problem identification, preparation of preliminary projects, and then the
creation of projects to the contest.
We also open a window to innovators who
participate or not in the competition to provide guidance and support if
necessary. We plan to expand the number of qualified people who can carry out
these tasks as well as the support and follow-up of the awarded projects, more
resources to attend the dissemination and communication through social networks
and the press.
Another aspect is that we need to award prizes
in inputs (not in cash) for the development of projects, to encourage
participation in the competition, and provide more tangible recognition to
innovators and their initiatives.
We face the challenge of doubling the number
of projects participating in the annual call-in three years, which are
approximately 120 and tripling the support to those presented.
Tus Ideas
Valen was declared of ministerial interest by the Ministry of Housing
Territorial Planning and Environment in 2017 for its contribution in the areas
of sustainable management of water resources, Environment, and Urban Planning.
The Ministry
of Industry, Energy and Mining declared it of ministerial interest in 2017 for
its contribution to the theme of Energy Efficiency. The National Public
Education Administration said them of educational interest in 2016 The
Secondary Education Council declared them of scholarly interest in 2016.
Our annual
budget for the past three years has been approximately $ 6,000 annually.
Considering that about 120 projects are submitted annually to the contest,
there are 50 dollars per proposed project, and considering that nearly 12
projects rewarded annually, they are $ 500 per awarded project. Tus Ideas Valen
was declared of ministerial interest by the Ministry of Mining and Energy
Industry in 2017, and by the Ministry of Housing Territorial Planning and
Environment also in 2017, by the National Administration of Public Education
ANEP in 2016 and by the Secondary Education Council in 2015.
The General Coordinator and CEO of Tus Ideas
Valen toured European countries visiting middle school study centers in Austria
and in Finland in 2015 exchanging experiences with similar organizations for
the Improvement of its work.
Translation Lic. Mariana Bazán.
