Stand A Chance To Win $2 500 By Coming Up With An Insurance Innovation

The Nicoz Diamond think tank competition was launched on Friday the 27^th of July. Think tank represents a pool of ideas, thoughts etc. We got a lot more details but those mentioned in the previous article were the essentials. The competition is one to come up with innovative insurance solutions for Nicoz Diamond, a short term insurance company and the insurance industry as a whole.  Below I’ll do my best to tackle some of the questions you may have.

Who can participate?

Any student from any tertiary institution and also those who have recently graduated. You can also be studying any program, they just want ideas they can use. You can enter as a group or just an individual.

What kind if innovations are they looking for?

Anything Nicoz Diamond can use in their business to get more people insured be it a process, product or program even. Something that will change not only Nicoz Diamond but the insurance industry as a whole. If it is a program you don’t need to have the program already running or a prototype you just need to describe how it will work and their experts will look into it.

How can you know that they are not already working on your idea?

It’s important that you check and make sure that they are not already implementing your idea . So you can quickly just visit their offices and check with them. They are already working on Telematics, Micro insurance products, Mobile application, Distribution channels(Insurance being sold together with goods), Call center, so don’t be so sure your idea is new just check.

What if you have more than one idea?

It’s encouraged that you have just one and invest in making that one really good and expressing it very well but if you can’t contain yourself you can make more than one entry and it is possible for them to end up in the finals

Where can you get you ideas?

Well they are looking for something original so you should not look on the internet and just copy paste something you find there.

When is the deadline?

All ideas should be submitted by the 30^th of September so that’s plenty of time for you to come up with something good. You should submit in the form of a concept note i.e a brief summary of the idea in no more than 3 pages. You can visit this link to submit or read about the judging criteria or learn more.

About shortlisting…..

Shortlisting will be done in October. 10 people/groups will be called in for interviews and 5 people/groups will be selected and the final presentation will be end of January. It will be a 10 minute presentation and 5 minutes of question and answer

What did they have to say about Intellectual Property?

The discussion on intellectual property was very interesting and people were worried about their ideas being used even if they don’t win or if they did win, would they just get prize money and that’s that? Once you enter the competition the ideas belong to Nicoz Diamond they will be honest and will do their best to give you some compensation if you don’t win but they decide to use your idea. If you do win they will take you on to work on the idea for a while but it is not guaranteed that you will permanently get a job there.

I think it’s a fair deal because where will you use your insurance ideas? You might as well try to get yourself some cash. But if you think your idea is huge and you will be a millionaire from it one day it’s best not to enter the competition but the thing with ideas is you never know who has the same idea and an idea is not worth much unless you are able to execute it.

For more  information on intellectual property it would be good  to visit an IP office and there are organisations such as African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that are there to assist you

Cash Prizes

Aside from the mentorship the cash prizes are as follows:

1^st  $2500

2^nd $1500

3^rd $750

4^th $500

5^th $250

Come one, come all

I think this is an awesome opportunity to challenge yourself and maybe make a lump sum of cash so work on something and submit what have you to lose?

If you have more questions you can send an email to nicozthinktank@gmail.com or Call/Whatsapp: +263 77 358 5468