The European Youth Award (contest) is EYA’s flagship initiative. Moreover, it is a European-wide contest to motivate young people, social entrepreneurs, and start-ups to produce digital projects having an impact on society. In addition, it demonstrates their potential to create innovative solutions with Internet and Mobile technology addressing the goals defined by the Council of Europe and Europe 2020 as well as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Furthermore, the annual winners event (EYA Festival) is a unique event combining knowledge – innovation – networking – inspiration – motivation taking place in Graz at the end of November. Also, it is a public event and everybody is welcome to join. Additionally, EYA’s global sister project is the WSA. Both iniatives are organized by the International Center for New Media, a Non-Profit Organization based in Salzburg, Austria.

Eligibility

People who fulfil the following criteria are eligible to participate in the competition:

• Creative minds under the age of 33
• living in one of the member states of the European Union, Council of Europe, or Union for the Mediterranean, Belarus or Kosovo
• Also, who have produced an outstanding, innovative digital project to improve society (ex. website, app, wearable device, digital installation)
• and submitted it to the EYA database until July 31 (submission open from March on)
• in one of the EYA categories,

Application

• Registration, including submitting project information, must be completed online via the EYA contest database (opening in March) in coordination with the communicated EYA call deadline.
• Projects can also be nominated by an EYA Ambassador, nominators or former EYA Winners. Nominated projects can be directly sent to online jury round 2 (upon discretion of the nominator).
• Submitting a product to the evaluation and selection process does by no means entitle a producer to any benefits. There is no way of challenging this decision legally.
• Only submitted and fully filled in applications will be considered by the EYA Jury.
• Submission is free of charge.