essay contest

Essay and project contest open now!

(through April 2016 - see below for info and prizes!)

Essay & Projects Contest

Contest benefits
Our hope is that you will find entering this contest valuable in itself, because it leads to interesting contacts or research or project work. In addition, there will be a prize of $2000 for the overall winner, and at least one project coaching session. There will be $500 for the best entry in each of the other two categories, and a chance to talk to the team about your essay/project. So that many people get some recognition for their good work, there will also be up to twenty $50-$100 shortlist prizes and commendations or certificates. ($1000 maximum in total prize money for the shortlist).

Who should enter

students, professors, post-graduates
research professionals
journalists
engineers, creatives, retired professionals
anyone who cares about humans well-being.

Collaborating with us:

If you are interested to collaborate, please feel free to simply contact us via the contact form.

Overall Mission:

Ultimately, our research team at TSU hopes to assemble a team of dedicated researchers globally who share our overall goal of saving as many lives as possible, should a global catastrophe ever threaten the survival of many millions. We have particular care and concern for developing countries currently served by the UN's World Food Program.

Other benefits from your work on this contest
The intent of the "Food System Shock" essay contest is

to draw attention to the challenges we would face to prevent mass starvation in the event that we experience a sudden global catastrophe.
to encourage concrete, actionable proposals for response planning, preparedness work etc.
to encourage research (from country assessments, masters level work and summer projects, all the way up to proposals for international teams).

Essay Subject Matter

The subject matter of the essay should address the question, "How could we feed everyone in the event that we experience a global crises in which there is a sudden reduction in agriculture?"

How Submissions Will Be Judged

Judges will apply these criteria:

(for essays)

quality and robustness of arguments presented

intelligent discussion of challenges to existing work in this area, quantitative or qualitative

understanding of the life-saving potential of work in this area

clarity of communication

(for proposals / projects / media initiatives)

quality, realism and specificity of ideas or projects proposed

relevant / imaginative / creative / inspired

clarity of communication

Affiliated / Related Programs

TSU
Tennessee State University is committed to excellence and innovation. Founded in 1912, TSU is a comprehensive, urban, co-educational, land-grant institution in Nashville, Tennessee. The university has been served by seven presidents, including Dr. Glenda Baskin Glover, who is currently serving as the eighth president.

FHI
The Future of Humanity Institute is a multidisciplinary research institute at the University of Oxford. Based in the Faculty of Philosophy, it enables leading researchers to bring the tools of mathematics, philosophy, and science to bear on big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects.
FHI focuses research where they think it can make the greatest positive difference. This means pursuing questions that are (a) critically important for humanity’s future, (b) unduly neglected, and (c) for which we have some idea for how to obtain an answer or a useful new insight. FHI works closely with the Centre for Effective Altruism, including sharing an office and collaborating on the Global Priorities Project, in order to translate their research into impact. Recently their focus has centred on existential risks and the future of machine intelligence.
For a thoughtful introduction to the FHI and its mission, we suggest “Omens“, Aeon’s profile of the Future of Humanity Institute.

GCRI (Global Catastrophic Risk Institute)
GCRI’s mission is to develop the best ways to confront humanity’s gravest threats.
Global catastrophic risk (GCR) is the risk of events large enough to significantly harm or even destroy human civilization at the global scale. Major GCRs include global warming, nuclear war, pandemics, and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Many organizations work on GCR, but they mainly look at just one risk or a few risks at a time. They do excellent work, but they don’t answer the big questions about GCR. That’s where we come in.
The Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (GCRI) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. GCRI was founded in 2011 by Seth Baum and Tony Barrett. GCRI studies the full range of GCRs and GCR topics in order to answer the big questions: Which risks should society be most worried about? How do the different risks affect each other? And above all, what are the best ways to reduce the risk?

CEA
Centre for Effective Altruism fosters projects which use evidence and analysis to help others as much as possible.

Multiple Breadbasket Failure
Lloyds of London have developed a scenario of an acute but plausible disruption to global food production and its consequences and implications for insurance and risk.
UK Science and Innovation Network and Foreign and Commonwealth Office estimate an ~80% probability that one of these major events will occur in the next 100 years from extreme weather impacts alone, (Report link.)

Note

This page is not directly affiliated with the actual host of the essay contest, FHI. All definitive info is located on the FHI site and on the submission application. The information provided by the "Food System Shock" website is the work of Dr. Denkenberger and Ray Taylor, and may prove useful as a reference tool in addition to other sources. This site is not intended to provide a definitive criteria for which the essay submissions will be judged - their criteria may be different from ours.