CEC 2022 Voting and Commenting Open for Everyone

Published on: 01.06.2022

June 1st marks the opening of the public voting and commenting for all the ideas and projects nominated for the Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition 2022.
Starting today until September 15th, all the entries pitched and accepted through both stages of the competition will be public and eligible for votes and comments.
We know that you may have a lot of questions as this new stage begins, so please read further below.

Remember: You can still submit a new entry. The deadline for entry submission is September 15th. (However, we strongly recommend you don’t leave it to the last day.)
The deadline for votes and comments is October 15th.

Where and how to find your entry:

Depending on the category and competition you can find your approved entry listed among the other public entries. Search it on the map, or by selecting different filters available on the page:
Vote for Best Ideas Youth Competition
Vote for Best Projects Youth Competition
Vote for Best Ideas Adult Competition
Vote for Best Projects Adult Competition

How to vote?

Every person that has an existing email can cast a vote for the ideas and projects published in the respective categories for the Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition 2022.

Follow these steps:

Pick one idea or project that you want to vote for
Enter your email
Click ‘Verify Your Email to Vote’
Check your email and click the link (also check your spam folder)
Afterward, you have 15 minutes to vote for every idea and project that you like
When the voting time expires you can’t vote for the next 24 hours.

Comments:
Unregistered people, who want to comment will have to enter their email and name along with their comment. After clicking ‘Post Comment’ they will be required to confirm their email.
Click the link received by email and the comment will appear.
In the meantime, the comments made by registered users will appear under their username.
Please post meaningful comments including recommendations and suggestions that can help other users to further improve their entries.
You can also ask them to support your entry with votes and comments, but please don’t do it by copying/pasting the same comment anywhere. Read more on our voting and commenting guidelines here.

How to promote your entry for votes?

When you start promoting your idea or project for votes make sure to:

Explain how it is benefiting or will benefit your community or a specific issue
Highlight what frustrating problems you are trying to solve and how you are doing it
Use emotions to make the audience notice, share, and vote for you
No matter what medium you’re using, create a human voice for your product/service
Talk about the importance of sustainable entrepreneurship and how it could make the world a better place.

Because internet access is not the same for everyone, we suggest you take advantage of traditional mediums such as print, daily papers, magazines, radio shows, podcasts, television, direct mail, telephone, and SMS are good options if they have an audience and are cost-effective.

When promoting an idea or project, or everything, people reach out to relatives, friends, people at the school or university, local clubs, and organizations. Social media will help you get more audience. Start by identifying the most popular social media sites in your region.
The most popular social media around the world based on the number of users are:

Facebook
YouTube
WhatsApp
Messenger
WeChat
Instagram
Tik Tok
QQ
QZone
Sina Weibo
Reddit
Snapchat
Twitter
Pinterest
Kuaishou
Next step. Identify what is the best type of content for each of these channels. Most people use social media for fun and relaxation. They chat with friends and look for photos, videos, and interesting content.

You can create a voice with videos and images
Cross-post across channels
Use your hashtags
Appeal to influencers by quoting them on your promotions
Organize contests and giveaways
Share content from your friends
Ask for input
Share helpful information
Don’t over-post
Schedule social media posts in advance
Make friends with other CEC contestants
Use your entry link in your signatures

You can also find CEC on social media Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.
Find and tag us on our social media channels to help you promote your entry to our audience.

Important Recap:

What do the first and second stages of the competition mean?

In the first stage, you submit a summary and select one or two SDGs that your idea/project supports.
The CEC admin accepts or rejects the entry.
You receive an email that states the status of your pitch. If the entry has been rejected the email will state the reason why. Please note that entries can get rejected for various reasons. Yet that doesn’t mean that the decision is final. Read the reason why it has been rejected and follow the instructions in the email to improve it and resubmit again. If you submit your pitch more than once, only one will be accepted. The others will get rejected. You can find all your accepted and rejected entries in your profile menu under My Ideas/Projects.

When you receive the confirmation that your initial pitch has been approved, you can continue with the second stage submission. Go to My Ideas/Projects, find your accepted entry, and click on the Improve button.
At this stage, you have the opportunity to include as many details as possible about your idea or project. Images and videos are optional. Be careful to upload only images that don’t infringe copyright law.

Make sure to know the difference between an idea and a project. When you submit a project at the second stage, you will be required to provide detailed information such as the year when your company was founded or its website. If your project is at an early stage of development or startup stage, please resubmit it again from the beginning as an idea.
When you think that your second stage pitch is ready, please go on and submit it for approval.
Again you’re going to get an email notification about the status of your entry.

If approved, your entry will be published automatically under the respective category (Vote for Best Ideas/Projects) and competition (Youth/Adult).

If you face any issues or have questions, please check our FAQ. If you cannot find an answer there, then ask for support: Send a message through the Need Help page or send an email to: [email protected].
Happy Voting!