Home Tags Posts tagged with "opportunities-for-african"
Tag:

opportunities-for-african

Call for Applications

2014 IDEA Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Regional Youth Forum (RYF), Tunisia(Fully Funded)

by lanredahunsi
written by lanredahunsi

Application Deadline: October 2nd 2014

Where: 22 to 27 December 2014 in Tunisia

The International Debate Education Association (IDEA) Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Regional Youth Forum (RYF) 2014 is a pilot youth event in the form of training and a debate and policy competition. It is designed to engage young people who are active in civil society, debate and public policy activities in on-going debates on issues of importance to the MENA region and the global community.

It is aimed at students and recent graduates aged from 18 to 28 from the MENA region who will form a team made up of other members of their university or youth organization, who will represent that organization.

Each team will compete for two titles: ‘best debating team’ and ‘best public policy proposal’. Experts on debate techniques and policy drafting will work with the teams on relevant issues.

 

Eligibility:

  • Any team of five university students, aged 18 – 28, currently enrolled in an accredited college or university in the MENA region, as well as recent graduates, can apply.
  • These teams need to be affiliated either with their educational institution, or with a youth organization and ideally be active in contributing to civil society activities. IDEA MENA’s selection criteria include: active civic engagement of team members, leadership potential, debate experience, team diversity, in addition to a thoughtful and creative essay piece.
  • IDEA MENA operates in 19 countries in the region: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Requirements:

1.      Be a team of five current students or recently graduated students with debate experience, aged 18 – 28, and affiliated with an educational institution or youth organization in the MENA region

2.      Designate a team coordinator

3.      Write your short essay

4.      Complete the 2 mandatory application forms: the Online Questions (to be completed by the Team Coordinator) and the Team Members Information.

5.      Submit the application (including all the necessary uploads) by 2 October, 2014

TRAVEL AND VISA

When will the MENA Regional Youth Forum take place?

  • The final stage of the RYF will take place from 22 to 27 December 2014 in Tunisia.
  • Forum participants will be expected to arrive the day before, i.e. 21 December 2014, and depart the day after the Forum, i.e. 28 December 2014.
  • IDEA MENA will aim to release further details regarding the Forum in October 2014.

What if I need a visa to come to Tunisia?

  • IDEA MENA will arrange a visa sponsorship invitation letter and any necessary proof of accommodation, and will reimburse the visa application cost upon production of receipt.
  • Participating teams are responsible for filing their visa paperwork on time, as well as ensuring that all team members have valid passports.

Who will pay for the costs of the trip?

  • IDEA MENA will cover the cost of training materials, travel (including visa application) and a full board accommodation for each participant in the Forum.
  • IDEA MENA will not be responsible for any other costs that the participant may incur to participate in the Forum (e.g. costs for a valid passport, private consumption, additional beverages, or other incidental costs before, during or after the Forum), unless otherwise agreed by IDEA MENA

Timeline:

1.      Application stage – includes submission of a short essay. (Deadline 2 October 2014)

2.      Selection of the  successful teams

3.      Training event in the team’s country of residence

4.      Submission of policy memorandum (Deadline 15 Nov 2014)

5.      Final debate and policy forum in Tunisia (22 to 27 Dec 2014)

 

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the IDEA Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Regional Youth Forum

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
African-Union-Scholarship
Call for Applications

2014 Mwalimu Nyerere African Union Scholarship Scheme for Young Africans

by lanredahunsi
written by lanredahunsi

Application Deadline:  31st May 2014

What

The  MWALIMU NYERERE AFRICAN UNION SCHOLARSHIP SCHEME  is intended to enable young Africans to study in leading African  Universities with a binding agreement that beneficiaries will work in any African country  for at least the same duration of scholarship period after graduation.

Why:
To encourage the participation of young African female students at postgraduate level,  for Masters and PhD programmes in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering,  Mathematics and Education Science (STEME), the Commission of the African Union is  offering the second Special Call for Scholarship Applications (For Female Applicants Only) to study in reputable African Universities.

Eligibility Criteria:

To be eligible for the Special Scholarship, a candidate must:

  • Be a Female Citizen of an African Union Member State
  • Be under the age of thirty five (35) years for Masters Programmes; and under  forty (40) years for PhD Programmes.
  • Be a holder of a Bachelor’s Degree in the relevant field, at the level of Upper  Second Class Honours for a Masters’ Programme; and a holder of Masters’  Degree in the relevant field for a PhD Programme. The degree must be from
    a reputable University
  • Have demonstrated outstanding academic achievement as evidenced by  academic transcripts, and academic awards if any.
  • Have proof of admission to undertake a full time Masters or PhD programme in a recognized university of an African Union Member State.
  • Be willing to commit to work in an African Union Member State on completion of studies for at least three (3) years.

ELIGIBLE FIELDS OF STUDY

The following fields of study are eligible:

  •  Science
  • Technology
  • Engineering
  • Mathematics
  •  Education Science

The Masters programme should be of two years duration; while the PhD programme  should be of three years duration.

METHOD OF APPLICATION

Interested candidates should complete the Application Form in PDF format as well as  the EXCEL Applicants’ Data Sheet, which are available on the Africa Union web-site:  www.au.int/nyerere

The applicants should submit their formal application which should include the following:

  • Completed application form
  • Recent passport-size photograph
  • Summarized CV with names and contacts of three referees.
  • Certified copies of academic certificates and transcripts
  • Certified copies of Passport or national Identity Card indicating citizenship
  • Copy of admission letter from a recognized African University
  •  Two (2) Reference Letters with contact addresses.
  • An essay of not more than 500 words that explains why the candidate has  chosen her particular field of study and its importance to Africa’s  development.

Note that Electronic Copies of all the above documents should be submitted.

Applicants must scan and produce electronic copies of all the above documents  (converted to PDF format) and send to the following e-mail address.

Mwalimu Nyerere Scholarship Programme
Education Division
Department of Human Resources, Science and Technology
African Union Commission
P.O. Box 3243
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the MWALIMU NYERERE AFRICAN UNION SCHOLARSHIP SCHEME 

Download the Application Form

4 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
google-faculty-research-award
Call for ApplicationsCall for Proposals

2013 Google Research Awards

by lanredahunsi
written by lanredahunsi

Application Deadline: October 15 2013

Google Research Awards are one-year awards structured as unrestricted gifts to universities to support the work of world-class full-time faculty members at top universities around the world. Faculty members can apply for Research Awards by submitting a proposal to one of our two 2013 funding rounds. Our 2013 deadlines are April 15 and October 15.

Recipients are selected through a comprehensive internal review process and notified of their awards within 4 months of the initial submission. Faculty members can apply for up to 150,000 USD in eligible expenses, but actual award amounts are frequently less than the full amount requested.

Most awards are funded at the amount needed to support basic expenses for one graduate student for one year. Please see our FAQs for more details on eligibility and budgets.

The intent of the Google Research Awards is to support cutting-edge research in Computer Science, Engineering, and related fields. We ask applicants to categorize their proposals into one of the following broad research areas of interest to Google:

  • Economics and market algorithms
  • Geo/maps
  • Human-computer interaction
  • Information retrieval, extraction, and organization
  • Machine learning and data mining
  • Machine perception
  • Machine translation
  • Mobile
  • Natural language processing
  • Networking
  • Policy and standards
  • Privacy
  • Security
  • Social networks
  • Software engineering
  • Speech
  • Structured data and database management
  • Systems (hardware and software)

Each funded project will be assigned a Google sponsor. The role of the sponsor is to support the project by discussing research directions, engaging with professors and students, and overseeing collaboration between the project team and Google. We encourage Research Awards recipients to visit Google to give talks related to their work and meet with relevant research groups here. Through the Research Awards program, we try to fund projects where collaboration with Google will be especially valuable to the research team.

Applying for Google Research Awards

To apply for a Google research award, faculty members should use the following general guidelines for proposal submission. More details are available in our FAQs. We made significant updates to our policies and requirements in 2012. Please read the information below, as well as our FAQs, carefully.

  • Full-time faculty members from universities worldwide are eligible to serve as Principal Investigators (PIs) or co-PIs on Research Awards proposals. Faculty members may submit one proposal per funding cycle as a PI or a co-PI unless they received an award the previous round. In that case we ask that PIs wait until the following round to apply for funding again, whether or not the projects are related. More details, including the definition of a PI and our eligibility criteria can be found in our FAQs.
  • This advice on drafting a strong proposal, written by a group of Google researchers and engineers involved in the review and selection process, is an excellent place to start as you prepare an application for the Research Awards program.
  • The application process for the Research Awards includes filling out an online form requesting basic information and uploading a PDF proposal via the form. As part of the online form, you will be asked to select a topic area from among the 18 areas listed above. Please select carefully, as this will determine which of our review committees will review your proposal. We may, at our discretion, move proposals between areas. Please note that Google cannot accept any proposal containing confidential or proprietary information.
    1. Proposal: the main proposal section is comprised of 4 parts: An overview, a proposal body, a data policy, and a budget. The maximum length of the entire proposal section, including references, is 3 pages. In addition to the 3-page proposal, we require a CV from the primary PI and allow the inclusion of CVs from co-PIs. The maximum length for each CV is 2 pages. For PIs (and co-PIs) who have been funded by Google in the past, in addition to the 4 parts listed above, we also require a brief (1/2 page maximum) summary of the results of past projects funded by Google. This section does not count toward the three-page proposal limit.
      1. Overview
        • Proposal Title
        • Principal Investigator (PI) full name, contact information (postal address, email address, phone), affiliation (university, school, college and/or department)
        • [Optional] The name(s) of up to two Google contacts. Contacts are defined as people at Google who are familiar with your professional work.
        • [Optional] The name(s) of up to two potential Google sponsors. Potential sponsors are defined as people at Google with whom you have already discussed the specific proposal. Providing contacts and potential sponsors as part of the appliction is optional; Google will assign sponsors to each funded proposal. Please see our FAQs for details on Google contacts and potential sponsors.
      2. Proposal body
        • Abstract
        • Research goals, including a problem statement
        • Description of the work you’d like to do, as well as the expected outcomes and results
        • How this relates to prior work in the area (including your own, if relevant)
        • References, where applicable
        • Please carefully review the advice provided by some of our reviewers before crafting your proposal
      3. Data policy
        • Google’s Research Awards program is designed to support work whose output will be made available to the public and to the research community. To that end, we ask that you provide us with a few sentences sharing what you intend to do with the output of your project (e.g. open sourcing code, making data sets public, etc). Please note that Research Awards are structured as unrestricted gifts, so there are no legal requirements once a project is selected for funding. This is simply a statement of your current intentions.
      4. Budget
        • The budget section should provide a breakdown in US dollars across major line items, such as student salary, student tuition, travel, and the cost of Android hardware where applicable. We prefer a short bulleted list of overall costs with basic explanations where needed. Please keep in mind that your budget counts towards the 3-page limit. Full-page budgets are not helpful to us.
        • Research Awards generally support basic expenses for one student for one year, so budgets are frequently reduced to this level of support. If two universities are involved, we may support one student at each school. Most awards are in the 40,000-70,000 USD range. The maximum amount a PI can request is 150,000 USD. Please see our FAQs for more details on eligible budget items.
        • If the your project will require on additional funding from another source (e.g. for specialized hardware), it may be helpful to note if you have already secured this funding.
        • Awards are structured as unrestricted gifts to universities, so Google has a strict policy against supporting overhead. Research Awards cover direct costs only. Indirect costs, administrative costs, and overhead are not considered eligible budget items.
      5. [For previously-funded PIs only] Results from past projects
        • If you have received Google funding in the past (in any form or through any program), we’d like a brief description of the outcomes of the work. We are most interested in concrete output (publications, software artifacts, data sets, awards, press, etc) and collaborations with Google (visits, talks, involvement with the Google sponsor, student interactions, etc). We require this information from all past funding recipients, even if the current application is unrelated to the project we previously funded. If you faced setbacks that prevented you from carrying out the work you initially laid out, please take a moment to explain what happened and how things turned out.
    2. CV of the PI(s)
      1. The maximum length of a PI CV is two pages. Any submitted CV that is longer than 2 pages may be cut off at two pages before the proposal review process begins.
      2. We require a CV for at least the primary PI on the proposal. We will accept CVs from each of the PIs listed on the proposal (up to three are allowed). Each CV must be limited to two pages.

      Google will post a submission link by October 4th, 2013. Please carefully review all the instructions below, including our FAQs and proposal advice.

    For More Information visit the Official Webpage of the Google Faculty Research Award

 

1 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail