Number of participants at Millennium Youth Camp will double next year
Application for the international Millennium Youth Camp starts today. This will be the fourth time that 16–19-year-olds interested in natural sciences, mathematics and technology will have the chance to get together with other like-minded young people to work on scientific projects dealing with global issues.
MY Campers learn also about the outstanding study and work opportunities in Finland and meet the winner of the Millennium Technology Prize and other leading experts from the Finnish business community and universities. The closing date for 2013 MY Camp application is 17 December.
A record number of more than 1,600 young people from all round the world applied for this year’s Millennium Youth Camp, which was held in June. The top 30 applicants were chosen.
The 2013 camp will take 60 young people.
“The camp has become more and more popular every year, and we have been unhappy that so many talented young people have failed to get a place at the camp. By increasing the number of participants we can encourage even more young people, who are interested in studying sciences and technology and help them create contacts with Finland at an early age,” says Ainomaija Haarla, President and CEO of Technology Academy Finland.
“The young people at the camp want to make a contribution and have the desire, using their knowledge and through interaction, to make the world a better place to live in,” Professor Maija Aksela from the University of Helsinki, and Director of the Finland’s Science Education Centre LUMA, describes the campers, based on scientific research about the camp.
“I now realize that the world is full of young people like me, who think in the same way and wish to use their knowledge to make an impact,” said Alexandru Palcuie from Romania after the 2012 camp.
Pavithra Parthasarathy from Canada says that meeting the winners of the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize was the absolute high point of the camp: “The time reserved for us for private discussion with Linus Torvalds and Shinya Yamanaka was an unforgettable experience. They have achieved so much, but are still very modest, ordinary people. That was a big lesson about life for us campers.”
The main organizers of the Millennium Youth Camp are Technology Academy Finland and Finland’s Science Education Centre LUMA (Helsinki University). Numerous Finnish companies and organizations are also involved.
Looking for more Finnish applicants
Young people from all continents can apply for the annual camp, and applications for the 2012 summer camp came from 107 countries. China and Romania had the most participants at the camp.
Several dozen applications came from Finland, and two young Finns were chosen.
Maija Aksela wishes to encourage even more young people to apply. “Three years have shown us that the camp has been a memorable experience for the campers. We particularly wish that even more Finnish young people would summon up the courage to apply. The international contacts made and networking at an early age open up new doors and opportunities.”
The Millennium Youth Camp 2013 will be held at the beginning of June in the Greater Helsinki area. The camp is free of charge for the campers.
The teamwork at next year’s camp will include some new topics. The teamwork topics at previous camps have been applied mathematics, climate, ICT and digitalization, water, renewable natural resources and energy. The additional topics next year will be bio-sciences and biotechnology, food sciences and technology, material sciences and technology, and urban planning.
Two-phase application process
Everyone born in the years 1994–1997 from anywhere in the world may apply for the camp through the Finnish Science Education Centre LUMA’s online service. Application for the first phase begins on 22 October and closes on 17 December.
From these applications 200 young people will be chosen for the second round by the beginning of February. They will be given the task of drawing up on their own a plan for a project relating to the topics. This plan must be sent in by the end of February. The project work will be examined and some of the young people will then be interviewed by telephone.
The names of the 60 participants chosen for the camp will be published on 15 March 2013. The participants will be chosen by a team of experts comprising representatives from Finnish universities and from Millennium Youth Camp partner companies.
Apply to Millennium Youth Camp, the application form and further information about the application process can be found at: www.millenniumyouthcamp.fi.
To learn, what MY Camp is all about, read news, watch videos and look at photos from the previous camps in MyScience.
