Asian Science Enterprise Challenge (ASEC) - the challenge

Have you heard about Asian Science Enterprise Challenge (ASEC)?

Well, ASEC, organized by Surya Institute, United In Diversity (UID), and Young Entrepreneur, is an intense and exciting 24 hour challenge for youths aged 16-19 year olds in Asia. The Challenge focuses on global issues that matter to the youths and their future. It helps raise the level of science and engineering entrepreneurship through understanding of innovation, business skills, teamwork, leadership, and working with diversity.

The first ASEC was held on 2009. Since 2009, over 300 youths have participated across Asia. Now ASEC has been a yearly event usually held between the 3rd and 4th week of May, with many countries as the participants and more new countries has been joining. They, the countries, conduct their own ASEC in their countries, until the winning teams from each nation will go on to represent their country in the final Global Enterprise Challenge (GEC) in the selected country.

The ASEC challenge:

ASEC 2009 challenge: Create and idea or sysyem that can be applicated on Apartment with capacity of 5000 people, to save the energy as much as 25% and still affordable for the people.

ASEC 2010 challenge: According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization some 13 million hectares of the world’s forests are lost every year, including 6 million hectares of primary forests. Primary forests — forests with no visible signs of past or present human activities — are considered the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the planet. Besides wiping out biodiversity, deforestation contributes about 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The main causes of deforestation include cutting timber to construct houses and furniture, and make paper.

Your challenge today is to design a product or process that will significantly reduce the use of timber in one or more of these areas: housing construction; furniture; or paper.  You will need to create a business plan for your product, and a 3-D model to be shown to potential investors.

In addition, your design will also need to educate the public – especially young people — about the benefits of your product.  Therefore, your 3-D model will later be donated to the local science museum as an exhibit, helping children learn how your product or process contributes to reducing deforestation and/or greenhouse gas emissions.

ASEC 2011 challenge: Mobility is an essential activity in our everyday life that we often take for granted.

In many countries around the world, there are disabled people and the elderly who are challenged to have mobility in their daily activities.

Today, new technologies in robotics, electronics, communications and etc can help the disabled and elderly people to gain back their mobility.

Your Challenge today is to develop a commercially viable product or services to help alleviate mobility issues faced by the disabled and/or elderly people in your country.

ASEC 2012 challenge: The effects of Global Warming has become more apparent in the last few years. Colder winters, longer summers and increasing rainfall are just some of the visible effects. Rising global temperatures and melting ice caps have led to erratic weather patterns and new global environments that humans have to live in and have had no time to adapt to. As this trend continues, it will begin to threaten the way we live and cause humans to reflect at their unsustainable practices.

Nature has had more time and opportunity to adapt and co-evolve with the changes in the environment. Animals, plants and microbes have taken over thousands and millions of years to evolve and adapt to various physical and social environments. It has developed its own set of systems, processes and means to survive. The new study of “learning from nature” called biomimicry is beginning to unfold new ideas and innovations for humans.

Your challenge is to use biomimicry to develop sustainable habitats, in your country, for living in the face of global warming.

The GEC challenge:

GEC 2008 challenge: To produce a working model of an innovative product, process, service or plan that will reduce the impact of growing demand on the world's dwindling water resources.

GEC 2009 challenge: To produce a working model of an innovative product or service that will reduce food waste in your country and help to alleviate starvation in one of the world’s poorest countries.

GEC 2010 challenge: To produce a working model of an innovative game for a family of four (2 adults + 2 children aged 8-12) that addresses the issues and challenges facing the world in 2030.

GEC 2011 challenge: On April 12th 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. To commemorate this momentous event in human history, the international space community has launched an international competition for schools.
Your challenge today is to conceptualise and design an interactive exhibit for display in science museums around the world, celebrating 50 years of human spaceflight, and looking ahead to the next 50.
Estimate what it will cost to develop your exhibit, and produce a business plan to recover the cost of creating and maintaining the exhibit.

GEC 2012 challenge: The 2012 Global Enterprise Challenge addresses an area of major concern and recognizes that in the current global recession, young people are finding employment hard to get and for some, self-employment has become the only alternative, requiring them to make the move from job-seeker to job-creator.
Your challenge is to Present a business idea to a panel of entrepreneurs who are keen to invest in a business start-up which might be a micro-business in exchange for an equity stake in the operation. These investors are particularly interested in business ideas that will create jobs for young people.

What will be the next GEC 2013 challenge???