Campus Energy Student Video Contest


Over the years, students from IDEA member campuses across North America have inspired us with innovative and exceptionally creative short videos about their campus systems. The videos are always a hit with our community and the unveiling of the winning submissions at our CampusEnergy conference is an event highlight. 

Best of all, these amazing videos are unique opportunities to promote the value of district energy to communities and campuses across the world.

View Official Student Video Flyer

Spotlighting Your Campus District Energy System

We encourage you to collaborate with students at your college or university and submit an entry in the IDEA Campus Student Video Contest. Filming a creative, three-minute video highlighting the benefits of your campus district energy system to your community can shine a light on your system both locally and globally – and possibly win you some amazing prizes.

For more than a decade, students from IDEA member campuses across North America have inspired us with their innovation and exceptional creativity over the years. We can’t wait to see what you and your students come up with this year!

The primary goal of the Campus Energy Student Video Contest is to enhance general awareness among students of how their institutions’ district energy systems and their operators provide a reliable, economic, efficient and environmentally sound means of heating, cooling and powering their campuses. In turn, these videos, when shared globally throughout our networks, help showcase the value of district energy to the communities they serve.

The Basics

Entrants will create a video, three minutes or less, about their campus energy system, with a central focus on the role of district energy in their institutions’ sustainability efforts. IDEA will publish it on our YouTube page.

After IDEA publishes the video, entrants will be asked to promote it on their institution's and their personal social media channels, where points are given to those that garner the most followers, colleagues and friends to like/comment on the video. 

A select Student Video Evaluation Committee of senior IDEA members will then review the submissions and rank them based on content, message, quality and likes/comments received when they shared their video.

The committee will then select a Grand Prize winner, along with second and third place awardees as well. The three winners will be announced to the public at CampusEnergy2024.

Rules and Regulations

  • Entrants must be students enrolled full-time or part-time in colleges and universities that are Members in Good Standing of the International District Energy Association for calendar years 2023-24.
  • Entrants’ submissions must be approved by an individual who is on the Facilities or Utilities staff of their institution.
  • All submitted video entries will remain the property of the International District Energy Association and all entrants must allow IDEA permission to use their submission for public education.

There's other fine print as well - please click the link below for official rules and regulations. 

Rules and Regulations

Selection Process

The videos will be selected primarily on the basis of content, educational value and production quality. The secondary criteria in the selection process will be the success of your social media campaigns to spread awareness about district energy and its role in campus sustainability.

Primary Selection Criteria
Content
---- Educational and informative content
Message
---- Power and clarity of message
---- How well the content is conveyed
Quality
---- Originality and creativity of content
---- Production quality
Secondary Selection Criteria
---- Social Media Campaign
---- The number of “likes” received by your video on the IDEA YouTube page will be recorded
---- Engagement on other social media platforms to direct viewers to the YouTube video

Read about the Selection Process


Prizes

GRAND PRIZE
• The student(s) who created the winning video will receive $1000 and paid airfare + lodging to attend CampusEnergy2024 in San Francisco, where you will have the opportunity to meet with members of the IDEA Board of Directors and key business leaders in the District Energy Industry.
• The Facilities or Utilities department of the entrant’s institution will receive 1 free conference registration and paid lodging for up to 4 nights to attend the IDEA2024 Annual Conference in Orlando, FL.
• The entrant’s College/University will receive public recognition from IDEA through social media and a formal press release for their commitment to reliable, economic, efficient and environmentally sound means of heating, cooling and powering their campuses.

SECOND PLACE
• The student(s) who created the second place video will receive $500.
• The entrant’s College/University will receive public recognition from IDEA through social media for their commitment to reliable, economic, efficient and environmentally sound means of heating, cooling and powering their campuses.

THIRD PLACE
• The student(s) who created the third place video will receive $250.
• The entrant’s College/University will receive public recognition from IDEA through social media for their commitment to reliable, economic, efficient and environmentally sound means of heating, cooling and powering their campus.


A Contest Designed to Inspire Student Engagement

Congratulations to the University of Cincinnati for winning the 2023 Campus Student Video Contest.

The winning video was submitted by Sam Iverson, a Mechanical Engineering major at the University of Cincinnati, Class of 2025.

It was an honor to present this year's award to the University of Cincinnati at Tuesday's Recognition and Networking Luncheon at CampusEnergy2023. The University of Cincinnati also won the award in 2020 and 2014.

Kudos to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for their second-place selection, Miami University for placing third in the contest, and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst for placing 4th.

You can view all the winning videos since the contest's inception in 2012 by watching the CampusEnergy Video Contest Winners playlist.