Kopi wins ‘design a youth commitment’ contest

Youth & Careers

A young man’s proposal to improve design of the online school-leaver selections to tertiary institutions has won Transparency International PNG’s (TIPNG) ‘Design a youth commitment’ contest
The winning entry from Arvin Kopi calls for more consultation to be done with manual selectors to ensure that digital selection captures all the nuance required for a more holistic school-leaver selection process.
TIPNG executive director Arianne Kassman presented the prize and certificates to Kopi and two runners-up. TIPNG ran the contest to mark global Open Government Week which ran from March 11-17.
The contest was aimed to inspire young citizens to actively engage in transforming the Government to better serve the people.
“When the Government of Papua New Guinea first signed up to the open government partnership in 2014, and subsequently submitted a two-year national action plan in 2018, we in civil society knew this would give us more of an even footing in co-creating what an open government in our country could look like,” Kassman said.
“The ideas submitted in our contest to see how people envisioned that future are testament to that.
“The OGP gives citizens a unique framework to co-create an agenda, captured in the national action plan 2018-2020, for openness to improve service delivery through seven specific commitments.
“Throughout Open Government Week, TIPNG as the lead civil society body in the open government partnership, led discussions on radio, online, in a seminar and through this contest where young people between the ages of 12-25 submitted innovative ways in which an open government could transform society.”
The open government partnership and the national action plan 2018-2020 contain seven commitments to be achieved by 2020 in four key areas. It was drafted by both Government agencies and over 20 civil society organisations.
The national action plan was endorsed by the National Executive Council and was the overarching mechanism for coordinating open government initiatives in PNG.