Open call: STARTS Prize Africa competition in Austria

An initiative of the European Commission, STARTS is designed to foster alliances of science, technology and artistic practice. The focus is on people and projects that contribute to mastering the social, ecological and economic challenges.

The STARTS Prize Africa will highlight and award regional best practices in the field through the launch of the African edition of the well-known STARTS Prize. The STARTS Prize has been a major contributor in building the foundations of a community interlinking artists, companies, scientists, researchers and businesses. This movement will now be enhanced with the first edition of the STARTS Prize Africa.

The STARTS Prize Africa welcomes initiatives that strive towards a positive social, humanitarian, economic or political impact and promote a diverse and sustainable society. Embracing the powerful intersection of arts and technology, it supports endeavours that address the pressing issues of the continent and facilitates digital transformation within the creative sector.

The STARTS Prize Africa recognises initiatives that use creativity to drive positive change and highlights examples of collaborations between individuals, collectives, and organisations from diverse sectors. The organisers are interested in projects that focus on societal challenges and promote sustainable practices on the continent.

Benefits

Prize Money: The STARTS Prize Africa prize money amounts to €30 000 and will be distributed among:

• Grand Prize of €15 000 (about $16 300).
• Five awards of distinction each €3 000.

Award Ceremony and Symposium: The winner of the STARTS Prize Africa Grand Prize makes a commitment to accept the award in person at the ceremony and to present the work at the STARTS Prize Forum. Both will take place during the Ars Electronica Festival on 4 to 8 September in Linz, Austria. Groups and institutions are requested to nominate a representative to fulfil this commitment.

Exhibition: If the submitted work is selected and honoured by the Jury, the artist is committed upon invitation to present the submitted work at the Ars Electronica Festival 2024, as well as at the consortium members’ events.

Eligibility criteria

• The STARTS Prize Africa is not restricted to a particular genre or field. The competition is open to all forms of creative practices, be it music, performing and visual arts, film, animation, gaming, photography, VR and XR, design, fashion, architecture, journalism, art-science collaborations, citizen science initiatives, human-centred AI projects, social software, and many more.
• The competition is open to citizens and residents of all African countries, as well as legal entities registered on the continent.
• An artist group is eligible to apply if at least one member is an African citizen or resident and he/she/they make a submission.
• The competition is open to applications from natural persons (such as individual creatives, artists or other professionals), groups of natural persons, legal entities (such as start-ups, associations, research and higher education institutions, public bodies, NGOs, companies, and other legally established organisations), and groups of legal entities (such as research consortia).
• Community initiatives may be submitted only by an authorised representative. This may be an individual or an organisation as specified above.
• Every submitted project must be, at the time of its submission, either totally completed or far enough along for the jury to be able to assess its quality and the likelihood of it being successfully implemented. The same applies to collaborative arrangements—at the time they’re submitted, they must already be up-and-running and in the implementation stage. No consideration will be given to entries that are purely concepts, ideas or proposals for collaboration.
• Projects should not be older than two years or have to show a significant update or further development within the last two years.
• Initiatives consisting of or benefiting entities subject to EU sanctions are not eligible to apply. *

* This includes entities subject to EU restrictive measures under Article 29 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and Article 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning ft he EU (TFEU) and entities covered by Commission Guidelines No 2013/C 205/059).

Required submission material

Applicants will need to provide the following material through the online submission platform:

• Audio-visual material: at least one file.
  • Video (3-10 minutes in length – .mp4, .mov).
  • Image (.jpg, .tiff, .bmp, .png at maximum quality).
  • Audio (.wav, .mp3, .aif, .mov, .ogg).
• Clear, detailed descriptions of the artistic concept, credits and received support, applicant’s affinity to Africa.
• Form of technical implementation (since specific prerequisites must be fulfilled for an onsite presentation (e.g. in conjunction with the Ars Electronica Festival), the project’s specifications as to hardware & software and spatial requirements are desirable).
• A printable portrait photo, biography, and contact data of the artist(s)/creator(s).
• At the entrant’s option, additional material such as images, documents, and drawings (as .png or .pdf) can also be submitted.

Submission process

To ensure the diversity of submissions, the STARTS Prize Africa works with a dual approach for submissions.

Applicants will need to provide the following material through the online submission platform.

The STARTS Prize Africa welcomes initiatives that strive towards a positive social, humanitarian, economic or political impact and promote a diverse and sustainable society in Africa. The submission is open to all forms of creative practices.

The submission deadline is 1 March.

Recommendations through international advisors

The international advisors who have reputation and credibility in the field will recommend projects and help to encourage wider ranges of participants as well as the geographical and gender balance. These recommended projects will be contacted by the organisers and asked to submit their project via the submission platform. So, the same process and deadlines will be applied, as for the open call submissions. The advisors serve as facilitators to identify relevant works and projects during the submission process. However, they will not be part of the Jury meeting and therefore will not have voting rights.

View the original call here.