Fly Your Ideas competition

Visit www.airbus-fyi.com to vote & decide on the winning video of Fly Your Ideas 2013. While the finalists now have one month to develop a live presentation of their idea for the Jury, five more teams - from Australia, China, Germany, Kenya and Spain - are battling it out online in the Video Competition with the best Fly Your Ideas video of 2013 to be chosen by popular vote. Visit the Video Competition page to watch the teaser and the five videos - you can also place your vote for your favourite as well. The video with the most votes by 12 noon on the 3 June 2013 will be crowned the winner.

Teams present their innovation and explain the concept’s key features and benefits in the competition’s first phase, with selected teams asked to transform their ideas into projects during the second round.  The teams – composed of three to five students – will be asked to identify an “academic mentor” from one of the team members’ institutions to lend support in the development of their proposal.  In the second round, each team also will be assigned an “Airbus mentor,” selected from volunteers across various departments at the company, to provide support with the direction and structure of their project.

Finalists are then chosen to introduce their initiative to Airbus and industry experts during a live finale – with the top team winning €30,000, and €15,000 going to the runner-up. 

The inaugural Fly Your Ideas challenge culminated with a judging in 2009, attracting a total of more than 2,350 students.  A multinational team from the University of Queensland in Australia won with its project to apply a natural fibre composite made from castor plants in aircraft cabins. In 2011, a team from China’s Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics earned top honors among 2,620 students for suggesting a ground-based wind power generation system derived from aircraft wakes. 

Over 600 teams – consisting of more than 2,500 students – submitted ideas for the 2013 edition of Fly Your Ideas, which focusses on solutions to six 21st century challenges identified by Airbus:

• Energy
• Efficiency
• Affordable growth
• Traffic growth
• Passenger experience
• Community friendliness

This overwhelming student response marked a new record for the challenge, and doubled the corresponding count from FYI 2011. From the entries, Airbus announced in May five finalists for the 2013 competition comprising teams from Australia, Brazil, India, Italy and Malaysia.

Fly Your Ideas is supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which will host the 2013 Fly Your Ideas awards ceremony at its headquarters on 14 June. In addition to the 30,000-euro top prize, the winning team also will have the chance to host an on-campus “innovation week” run by Airbus experts.