What is Tus Ideas Valen?

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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.

·          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.

·         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 committment, allowing the winners to join as volunteers to continue developing the tasks of dissemination of the calls as in support of the awarded projects.

·          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.

·          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 contents.

·          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 . We have worked intensively using free internet resources for communications.

 We have also reached agreements with the National Television of Uruguay to broadcast spots of the calls since 2017.

 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.

 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.