Ebène, 26 March, 2021: The National Productivity and Competitiveness Council (NPCC) has launched the Scrap Challenge project targeted towards young students with the objective to trigger their innovativeness and creativity using scrap materials at home, especially during the lockdown period.
Innovation being one of the core components in the effort to boost productivity, the NPCC deemed the actual holiday period for students an ideal moment to fuel their innovative minds through the Scrap Challenge.
The project intends to make students reduce, recycle and re-use scrap found at home into something innovative and creative in the form of art or functional. Participants can use any broken, inoperative, discarded or old objects available at home for their projects.
The Scrap Challenge targets students in two distinct categories. The first category regroups students of Grades 4 to 8 while the second category regroups students from Grades 9 to 13.
“Our attempt through the launch of the Scrap Challenge is to make our young students understand the power to be innovative. Being innovative means we can respond to any problems and crisis situation. By using scrap materials, we are also trying to make our students think how they can recycle disposable materials into usable and reusable objects,” says Mr. Ashit Gungah, Executive Director of the NPCC.
It is to be noted that all projects will be assessed by experts in the field of creativity, innovation or arts on a number of criteria that include innovation, creativity, originality, aesthetics and functionality.
The Scrap Challenge will take place in three timeframes, the first one with registration on 25 March and project submission deadline set for 7 April, the second one with registration on 8 April and project submission deadline set for 22 April and the third one with registration on 23 April and project submission deadline set for 7 May.
The winners in both categories will be announced after the closure of each batch in the timeframe. Students can participate in all three challenges but only one scrap innovation per student per challenge will be accepted.
Each winner in each category will win a cash prize of Rs 3,000. For more information, students can visit the website of the NPCC – www.npccmauritius.org or www.npccinnovation.org.