Stetson’s Canvas My Campus project needs your support!

Three Stetson juniors: Abby Thompson, Annie Roche, pictured riding a camel in Morocco, and Emmie Wenzell, entered the Canvas My Campus competition, a global university online crowd-funding contest for people who want to share their ideas for creating change internationally. This campaign, which represents a partnership between Prezi and tilt, provides a platform to reinvent the art of presentation and fundraise for a cause for people who want to share their ideas and create change internationally.

Out of hundreds of people to enter this online competition, these Stetson finalists are now in the top 10 competitors, and need your contribution to win BY 11:59 p.m., FRIDAY, DEC. 19! Find out more about the Canvas my Campus international competition on their website.

How does it work? Students set a minimum dollar goal, and when the group “tilts,” or reaches that amount, people will be charged. Currently Tilt has $37.1 million from three rounds of this type of crowd-funding, and these three Stetson juniors are now a part of this progression.

If they win, they get free Prezi EDU Prop for a year for the entire university, which includes students, faculty and staff, valued at $180,000 collectively for the entire university. They would also win a free trip to San Francisco to visit the Prezi and Tilt headquarters. Two winners will be selected—one by tilt and Prezi staff, and the other will be selected by the public, based on the Tilt campaign.

The three Stetson business students are from different states and traveled to different countries this past year through Stetson’s WORLD: Rinker Center for International Learning/Study Abroad program. Thompson and Wenzell studied in Madrid, Spain; Roche participated in the Semester at Sea program. Their experiences have inspired them to create an international youth ‘think tank.’

The mission of the ‘think tank’ idea is to develop the idea of global responsibility through the facilitation of international thoughts, ideas, and information coming from young leaders.

“Our idea started when Abby and I were in Morocco during our time in Spain. We got to spend lots of time with Moroccan university students and were extremely impressed with ideas that they had,” said Wenzell. “We realized that there are countless students and other youth around the world with incredible ideas, but many of them have no outlet with which to spread these ideas. Here in the United States and at a university like Stetson, we have countless resources and outlets of our own. So, we asked ourselves, ‘why don’t we use what we have here to help others spread their ideas?’”

They call their project youHAV, which means Youth Have A Voice. “The idea for the project really expounds upon our campus’ value of global citizenship,” Wenzell said. These young women have also been influenced by Matt Kurz, director of Student Development and Campus Vibrancy. “Matt has and is always willing to invest in us beyond just what we learn in the classroom,” they explained. “He encouraged us to take on opportunities such as this contest.”

Their goal is to empower young leaders and make positive changes globally and locally. “As we can see in the small classes offered at Stetson, bringing together passionate people allows for incredible conversations and idea development,” Wenzell said. “So on a grander scale, we figure that bringing together people with vastly different backgrounds and life experiences would foster an environment for incredible discourse, and who knows what ideas could come from it. Basing it here on campus seems to align perfectly with all three core values (Intellectual Development, Personal Growth and Global Citizenship) that Stetson already promotes,” she said.

So, what do these three Stetson students need to do to win? Through their Tilt campaign, they need to put their crowd-funding into action. More than raising the most money, it is about the number of people who respond to their campaign online.

The more people to respond, the higher a chance they have to win. The amount of the donation is not as important as simply the number of people to contribute to the Stetson team. To donate and register your vote for Stetson’s entry into the Canvas my Campus international campaign, visit Canvas my Campus – Finalist – Stetson University.

Win or not, these students are hoping to put up their website and start bringing people together for forum discussions, through Skype meetings, and more. Their long-term goal is to have an application process and a tier ranking of ambassadors from a country, while also having other members from within the same country still involved. “We have a long term goal of being able to bring people together,” they concluded.

By Grace Aguda