Mission Life 2019

Mental Health In The 21st Century (registration closed)

Eligibility

Undergraduate, graduate and professional students attending any of Kent State's eight campuses and representing any major are eligible to participate along with approved partners.
If interested in participating, please email the Mission Life Coordinator as soon as possible.
Participating teams are required to submit a brief abstract indicating their project overview. Abstracts will be accepted in August/September.
All research, scholarly work, or creative activity must be completed in collaboration with the Mission Life Coordinator.

About

Mission Life engages undergraduate, graduate and professional students from different disciplines in the development of innovative designs, ideas, tools, resources and/or services that address certain topics that change year to year. This year being Mental Health In The 21st Century. This competition does not only address the issues of the 21st Century, but also brings together some of the brightest minds from around the world, which create solutions to the challenges we face today.

History of the Mission: Life Competition

The first project in the evolution of the international Mission: Life competition was initiated at PUCPR by the dean from the School from Health and Biosciences in 2012; it was titled “Mission Health.” Multidisciplinary teams were formed by students from the undergraduate programs of Biological Sciences, Biotechnology, Dentistry, Gastronomy, Nursing, Nutrition, Pharmacy, Psychology, Physical Education and Physical Therapy. The competition continued in this manner in 2103 and 2014 at PUCPR.

Mission Life, 2015: was the first international version of the competition. The topic for this year was “innovative solutions to diabetes.” The teams consisted of four to ten students from different programs from both PUCPR and UIW. The projects were presented in English and Portuguese. The projects were submitted to an evaluation commission formed by professors from PUCPR and UIW, according the criteria: 1. Innovation; 2. Multidisciplinary; 3. Social inclusion; 4. Sustainability; 5. Technical viability; 6. Relevance; 7. Humanitarian aspects; and 8. Christian values. The four best projects were selected to the final competition, where the teams’ concepts were subjected to student voting.

Mission Life, 2016: 2016 incorporated an expansion of disciplinary partners, thus expanding the challenge. At PUCPR, the School of Health and Biosciences became School of Life Sciences, after the incorporation of Veterinary, Agronomy and Forest Engineering undergraduate programs and the Animal Sciences graduate program, and Kent State University took part in the competition for the first time. The contest was opened to students duly enrolled in undergraduate or graduate programs from each of the three institutions. The composition of each team was subjected to the limit of up to 50% of students enrolled in graduate school. The goal of the competition was to engage undergraduate, graduate or professional students from the participating institutions in the development of “innovative designs, ideas, tools, resources and/or services that address the search for well-being of humans, animals and the environment” under the theme of "One Health."

With the addition of Kent State, each university developed a local competition in order to choose their finalist team. The final contest took place at the PUCPR campus, on November 21, 2016. The projects were presented in a “Pitch Session” form, to an examination board, constituted by three jurors, that judged the projects according to the following nine criteria:

Social Inclusion: global reach;
Innovation and originality;
Financial, structural, operational and cost-benefit feasibility;
Sustainability: balance with respect to environmental resources;
Technical viability according to the present reality and to the present regulations;
Multidisciplinary;
Civic engagement and human values: social benefits and respect to individuality;
Quality of the showcase presentation;
Quality of the oral presentation.

The projects were also submitted to voting by popular jury. The School of Life Sciences from PUCPR sponsored the meals and accommodations for four finalist’s students from UIW and KSU for three days. Every participating institution provided the flight tickets of their respective representatives.

Mission Life, 2017: Again, the aim of the competition in 2017 was to stimulate the participation of undergraduate students from participating institutions in developing innovative proposals. Designing tools, resources or services aligned with at least one of the 17 international “sustainable development goals” delineated by the United Nations Development Program (www.undp.org). Similar to the 2016 competition, PUCPR, KSU and UIW each developed a local competition in order to choose the finalist team. The final contest took place at the KSU campus (Kent-Ohio) on November 13, 2017. The projects were presented in a “Pitch Session” format to an examination board. Kent State University sponsored the meals and accommodation for four finalist students each from UIW and PUCPR for three days. Each participating institution provided the flight tickets of their respective representatives.

Mission Life, 2018: Following the organization of the former international versions from the contest, in this year UIW was the host of the final competition. The theme was “Global Immigration in the 21st Century.” Hosted at their campus in San Antonio, Texas, all other aspects of the international competition were the same; but the UIW organizing team also added an innovative element to the program. On the day following the announcement of the winning team, all members of each of the participating institutions participated in a community-engaged service learning activity together. This helped to build both an awareness and a camaraderie across and amongst the students, staff and faculty leaders of each participating institution; and as such reinforced many of the core goals of the collaborative inter-institutional competition.

Benefits

Earn university wide and international recognition
Develop a 21st Century Skill Set
Work alongside and against domestic and international students
Build your professional resume by working with an interdisciplinary team
Build international friendships

Questions

Please direct any questions regarding Mission Life VIII to Dr. Edgar Kooijman at ekooijma@kent.edu or 330-672-8568