Deadline Extended- Excellence and Innovation in Sweetpotato: Communication for Change Award

The Sweetpotato for Profit and Health Initiative (SPHI) is pleased to announce that the ‘Excellence and Innovation in Sweetpotato: Communication for Change Award’ will take place for a second year in 2018.

The annual award was established last year with a generous endowment from Dr. Jan W. Low, a recipient of the World Food Prize in 2016, to recognize the best sweetpotato communication product. 

This year the prize will be awarded for the best Communication Product produced in 2017 (January-December). The winner will receive an award of US$500. The award will be presented to the lead publisher and is intended to be split among the co-publishers.

The main criteria to assess submissions will be: originality, quality, appropriateness for key audiences, and the results of the communications product and/or its contribution towards the impact of your organization, program or project.

The deadline to receive applications has been extended to 31 August, 2018. The winner will be announced during the SPHI annual meeting, to be held 24-27 September 2018 in Nairobi, Kenya.

Entry details

All submissions must use the accompanying Entry Form, including a cover letter and maximum 800-word description of the communication product addressing some or all of the criteria outlined below.

View/Download Entry Form here

Submit your entry to the chair of the committee, Holly Holmes at h.holmes@cgiar.org

Files must be submitted in the following formats:

• Video: Files must be submitted as a link to stream the video, such as through YouTube, Vimeo or another video streaming service
• Image: JPEG, PNG
• Audio: MP3, WAV
• Document: PDF, PPT

Prize

One (1) prize will be awarded at the value of US$500.

Eligibility and Requirements

• This competition is open to all individuals who work under the SPHI umbrella. This includes staff from: NARI’s, NGOs and private sector partners who work on sweetpotato as well as staff from the International Potato Center and other CGIAR Centers and Research Programs.
• The competition is open to the follow types of communications products, or a campaign consisting of the following products: Video, Image, Audio, PDF, PPT
• The products may be about any type of sweetpotato, it is not restricted to orange-fleshed sweetpotato.
• The products can be in any language; however, an English translation must be provided. Entry forms must be written in English.
• Teams or individuals may submit more than one entry.
• By entering to this competition, participants agree to a creative commons attribution, which is a non-commercial share-alike license (BY-NC-SA) for their communication products. Competition organizers will promote the winning product on the Sweetpotato Knowledge Portal and other relevant websites. Practitioners and their respective organizations will be fully credited for their work.

Judging Panel

The committee responsible for selecting the best sweetpotato communication product consists of Holly Holmes (Communications Specialist, CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas); Sara Quinn (Communications Associate, CGIAR System Organization); and Rosemary Kihiu (KM and Reporting Manager for Seed Systems, CIP Regional Office).

Judging Criteria

The judging criteria is outlined in detail below. The competition encourages quality and innovation. In creating this prize, we wish to acknowledge and recognize the power of communications to reach target audiences and to change behavior.

Each submission will be judged out of a total of 100 points:

• 50 points for the communication product
• 50 points for the results achieved

Part 1

The communication product – 50 points 

 
Part 2 
Results achieved – 50 points