The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) wants your help in building tools to educate the public about safety in the workplace.

36 days left to submit (view all dates)

Roughly 18 million workers in the United States are 24 years old or younger and constitute almost 15% of the workforce. In 2009, 359 workers between the ages of 13 and 24 died from work-related injuries. In addition, there were over 800,000 non-fatal work-related injuries that required medical attention. The rate of emergency room treated occupational injuries is double for workers under the age of 25 in comparison to those 25 years and older. Workers, especially young workers, need to be aware of hazards they may face on their job and what they can do to protect themselves. Young workers are often unaware of their rights to raise workplace safety concerns.

Challenge Summary:

Your challenge is to use publicly available government information (i.e., DOL/OSHA data, NIOSH data, and other online government resources) to educate young workers on the safety and health risks in real work scenarios. Each submission should achieve both the following goals:

• Provide tools that demonstrate the importance of knowing about workplace safety and health hazards:
  These features should include components that inform young workers about health and safety hazards in the workplace and the serious consequences of workplace injury. Information on safety and health from OSHA, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), NIOSH, State Worker’s Compensation data, and/or other government sources must be incorporated to create real world scenarios. Additional suggested features include tools that bring awareness to best management practices, such as engineering controls and personal protection equipment (PPE).
• Provide tools to understand their rights in the workplace:
  The features should include components that help young workers become aware about their rights in the workplace and their employer’s responsibility to ensure their health and safety on the job. The content and type of application must be age appropriate, and should also feature mechanisms for users to interact or share with each other.

In addition, submissions should:

• be creative, innovative, and easy to use;
• provide access to important data and resources;
• attract users with different skill sets and language preferences;
• consider partnerships that will ensure sustainability of the app; and
• Target the 13 to 24 age group, but may also cover a larger demographic as worker’s ages range from 13 to 65+.

Successful apps could take many different forms, such as: interactive and informative games, social or professional networks, or data visualization.

Submissions may be designed for internet browsers, smartphones, feature phones, social media platforms, or as native Windows or Macintosh applications.

Criteria:

Submissions should be creative and innovative, offering the public easy access to important data and resources that meet the stated goals of this challenge. Successful apps could take many different forms, such as: interactive and informative games, social or professional networks, or data visualization. Additionally, submissions should consider partnerships that will ensure sustainability of the app, and should also consider means to attract users with different skill sets and language preferences. See the "Judging Criteria" section for more information.

Prizes:

A total of four (4) prizes totaling no more than $30,000 will be awarded, including one (1) Grand Prize, two (2) Category Prizes, and one (1) People’s Choice Award prize. A single entry is eligible for winning more than one prize. The awards are described in the "Prizes" section. Prizes are subject to change.

Partners: U.S. Department of Education, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Employment & Training Administration (ETA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).