Poster for the 2024 Social Responsibility PLUS+ Contest

Every year, an opportunity arises for members of the SNU community to expand and develop their ideas that tackle social problems: The Social Responsibility PLUS+ Contest is hosted by the Seoul National University Social Responsibility (SNUSR) each November in hopes to discover and encourage innovative ideas that contribute to the local and global community. This year, the registration for the Social Responsibility PLUS+ Contest is open until September 19.

The Social Responsibility PLUS+ Contest was established in 2016 to act as a platform that nurtures the ideas of members of the SNU community. The project was established not only to uncover ideas but also to provide participants with an opportunity to fully realize them and explore the real-world impact that they may have. Through such opportunities, the Social Responsibility PLUS+ Contest aims to further motivate students to continuously engage with their local and global environment and carry out their social responsibilities more proactively.

The Social Responsibility PLUS+ Contest is open to all members of the SNU community, providing that they remain a member of the SNU community throughout the duration of the contest. Participants can register as either an individual candidate or as a team with a maximum of five members. To register, participants must devise and submit an idea that may be helpful in supporting their local or global community. Proposals in the past have included one that planned to create an evacuation route guiding system for individuals with visual impairments, and a project that introduced an oral health-management system and education scheme in Tanzania to prevent early childhood caries in the area. As seen from this set of diverse topics, there is no limit to the ideas that can be proposed as long as they are all related to efforts of social responsibility.

After the registration-period ends, participants go through the preliminary rounds where a panel of judges chooses the teams that will go on through to the actual contest. Participants are evaluated on their proposal’s creativity, its level of technicality and professionalism, and the proposal’s potential to be realized. Such evaluation criteria ensure that the proposals that move on are ones that are unique in their ideas and can actually be materialized. The candidates who are selected to advance are required to attend mentoring sessions in which they are given guidance on how to start and run their projects. In order to ensure participants can prepare for the contest to their fullest, they are given seed money to run simulations and test out their projects. The contest itself is held in November and is conducted as a series of presentations in which candidates detail their proposals and its expected impact.

The dates for the 2024 Social Responsibility PLUS+ Contest are as follows. Detailed information regarding the contest can be found on the SNUSR website.

The Seoul National University Social Responsibility (SNUSR) is an organization dedicated to ensuring members of the SNU community can contribute to the local and global community in which they live. Other than the Social Responsibility PLUS+ Contest, the organization also operates education and volunteering programs such as the Social Responsibility Academy and the SNUSR Corps through which SNU members can make efforts to engage with their social responsibilities. If you are interested in the types of programs offered by the SNUSR, please visit the SNUSR website.

Written by Yeryoung Lee, SNU English Editor, yeryounglee@snu.ac.kr