Last verified: 20 August 2026
You are twenty three, you live in Konya, and every summer the conversation about groundwater in your province gets a little more anxious. You have an idea about it. Nothing polished, nothing with a budget attached, just a workable thought that keeps surfacing whenever the subject comes up at home or in class.
At the end of September, a three day event lands in your own city where a jury and a room of mentors will actually sit with that thought. That event is the COP31 Youth Climate Ideathon, and it is happening in six other Turkish cities too, between early September and the middle of October. It is run by the Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Youth and Sports, it is open to anyone aged 15 to 29, and the teams that do well get carried into the COP31 process in Antalya later in the year. What follows is the calendar, the application itself, what the official page promises, and just as importantly, what it stays quiet about.
What the COP31 Youth Climate Ideathon actually is
Strip away the branding and it is a structured weekend of problem solving. It starts with a short solution proposal on one climate theme. If you are selected, you spend three days working inside a team on a real problem, with expert mentors giving one on one support, and you close by presenting your idea to a jury.
The Ministry is running seven of these rounds, one in each of seven regions, and the announcement puts the total at roughly 630 young people across all seven. Spread that across the calendar and you land near 90 places per city. That is a useful number to keep in mind. It is selective, but it is not a competition with three winners and six hundred spectators.
The wider framing matters as well. COP31 is the United Nations climate change conference, and Türkiye is hosting it in Antalya from 9 to 20 November 2026. These regional ideathons are the domestic feeder into that moment. When applications opened, Minister Osman Aşkın Bak described the aim as turning young people’s thinking about climate change into concrete and implementable solutions, and said the events would run across seven regions and seven cities.
The seven city calendar, and why your city is your real deadline
Here is the part that changes how you should plan. The official page does not publish a single closing date for applications. What it publishes is a list of cities and dates, and in practice each city’s date functions as its own cutoff.
The rounds run as follows:
- Istanbul on 4, 5 and 6 September
- Rize on 9, 10 and 11 September
- Adana on 18, 19 and 20 September
- Konya on 25, 26 and 27 September
- Izmir on 2, 3 and 4 October
- Mardin on 9, 10 and 11 October
- Erzurum on 16, 17 and 18 October
Read that list twice before you do anything else. The Istanbul round opens the season and gives applicants the least breathing room, while Erzurum closes it six weeks later. If you are reading this in the second half of August, the earlier cities are already tight, because selection, notification and travel planning all have to happen before the event begins.
The absence of a published closing date is not a small detail, so treat it as a live risk rather than a technicality. Applications could close well before each city’s event to allow for review. The safe move is to submit as early as you can rather than assuming the portal stays open until the day before. If your timing is genuinely borderline, call ALO GSB on 444 0 472 or write to kim@gsb.gov.tr and ask directly which rounds are still accepting applications.
How the application works on the E Genç platform:
The whole thing runs through the Ministry’s own online youth portal. There is no paper form, no posted documents and, based on the published information, no reference letters or transcripts to chase.
The sequence is short:
- Open the COP31 Youth Climate Ideathon application on the E Genç platform at e-genc.gsb.gov.tr
- Choose one theme from the eight the Ministry has set
- Write a brief solution proposal addressing that theme
- Submit, and keep a copy of what you wrote
That is the entire published process. The official page names the short solution proposal as the thing it expects from you, and it does not list any other required documents.
What a short solution proposal is really asking for:
This is where most applications are won or lost, and it is worth being clear about what “brief” means in a selection context. A short proposal is not a shorter version of a research paper. Reviewers are reading many of these against a fixed number of places, so what tends to travel well is a specific problem, a specific response, and a reason you in particular are the person writing it.
A workable shape looks something like this:
- Name the problem in one or two sentences, tied to a place you actually know. Water stress in the Konya plain reads very differently from water stress in general.
- Say what you would do about it, concretely enough that someone could picture the first step.
- Say who it helps and roughly how many people that is.
- Say what makes it doable rather than aspirational. Existing infrastructure, an obvious partner, a low cost first version.
- Close with why you are connected to it. A summer spent on your grandparents’ farm, a school project, a neighbourhood you grew up in.
Avoid the temptation to write something that sounds like a policy document. The Ministry is looking for ideas from young people that can be developed into implementable outputs, which means clarity beats vocabulary every time.
Also Check: Youth Strategic Forum (YSF) Dubai 2026
The eight themes, and how to pick one
You select a single theme when you apply. The eight are:
- Green Skills and Climate Literacy
- Youth Participation and Climate Leadership
- Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience
- Air Pollution, Clean Air and Green Transition
- Fighting Forest Fires, Drought and Water Stress
- Agriculture and Food Security
- Renewable Energies and Reducing the Carbon Footprint
- Youth Friendly and Environmentally Compatible Sports Facilities
Two practical thoughts on choosing. First, pick the theme where your own experience gives you something nobody else in the room has. That is usually where you live, what your family does, or what you study. Second, notice that the eighth theme, sports facilities, is unusual, and it exists because the organiser is the Ministry of Youth and Sports. If you have ever trained at a public facility and noticed how much water, electricity or waste it produces, you are closer to a strong entry there than you are to a crowded renewable energy proposal.
The most competed themes will almost certainly be renewable energy and climate literacy, simply because they are the most familiar. That is not a reason to avoid them if your idea is strong, but it is a reason to be sharper if you choose them.
Who this is for, and what the page does not ask for
The eligibility bar as published is remarkably light. Two things are named and nothing else:
- You are between 15 and 29 years old
- You have an interest in climate change, sustainability, environment, zero waste or the circular economy
There is no minimum grade, no requirement to be enrolled at a university, no subject restriction and no demand for prior experience. A high school student in Rize and a working engineer in Izmir are both inside the stated band, provided they are under 30.
That interest clause is doing more work than it looks. It is not a formal criterion you have to evidence with certificates. It is a signal about what the reviewers expect to see in the proposal itself, namely someone who has thought about this before today. If you have volunteered, run a school club, done a zero waste project or simply read seriously about it, put that in your own words rather than leaving it out because it feels too small.
Anything the page leaves unstated, including questions about nationality and team formation, is covered further down in the questions section rather than guessed at here.
What the three days give you, and what the official page does not promise
This section needs to be read carefully, because it is the one place where a reader could get an expensive impression that the source does not support.
Here is what the Ministry does list:
- Three days of developing a solution to a real problem alongside your team
- One on one support from mentors who work in the field
- The chance to present your idea to a jury
- A network of young people from different cities across Türkiye
- For the most successful teams, participation in the COP31 process in Antalya and the chance to present internationally
- A place at the International Ideathon running alongside the COP31 process
Now here is what it does not say. The published announcement makes no statement about accommodation, meals or travel costs for the regional rounds. It does not describe the event as fully funded, and it does not mention a stipend, a prize fund or reimbursement of any kind.
Do not fill that silence with optimism. There is precedent for support: an earlier Ministry ideathon in 2020 covered transport and accommodation for its finalists at a youth camp in Kırşehir. Precedent is not a promise, though, and this page carries no such commitment for the 2026 rounds. If getting to Adana or Erzurum means booking travel, budget for it as an expense you may have to carry yourself, and ask the organisers directly before you spend anything. One phone call to 444 0 472 costs nothing and settles it.
The Antalya route: how a regional idea reaches an international table
The reason this ideathon is worth more than a good weekend is the pathway sitting behind it.
Türkiye is hosting COP31 in Antalya from 9 to 20 November 2026, and the Ministry has said that the most successful teams from the regional rounds will take part in that process. Alongside the conference there is an International Ideathon, where selected teams work with participants from other countries on the same problems.
Put plainly, this is a domestic weekend with an international ceiling. The realistic reading is that most of the 630 participants will finish with the three day experience, the mentoring and the network, and a smaller number will continue to Antalya. The official page does not publish how many teams advance, how they are chosen or what happens once they arrive. Go in wanting the weekend to be worth it on its own terms, and treat Antalya as the upside rather than the plan.
Even without the Antalya place, a jury presentation on a climate idea is a real line on a CV, especially for applicants who later go after climate scholarships, youth delegate roles or environmental internships. Selection panels for those programmes tend to respond to specifics, and “I pitched a drought response idea to a jury at a Ministry ideathon in Konya” is a specific.
Mistakes that quietly sink ideathon applications
Most rejected proposals are not rejected for being unintelligent. They are rejected for being interchangeable. A few patterns to avoid:
- Writing about climate change instead of a problem. The theme is the category. The proposal needs a problem inside it, with a location and a group of affected people.
- Solving something you cannot describe from experience. If you have never seen the issue up close, it shows in the detail.
- Proposing an app as a reflex. Sometimes the answer is an app. Often it is a change to how an existing facility, farm or school already operates, which is far more implementable and reads as more mature.
- Leaving it to the final days. With no published closing date, late submission is a genuine risk and not just a stylistic flaw.
- Copying a template answer. Reviewers reading dozens of proposals notice repeated phrasing immediately, and generic text is the fastest way to be forgotten.
- Ignoring the sports facilities theme when it fits you. Under used categories are where a decent idea has the most room.
One more thing worth saying, because it applies well beyond this programme. Write the proposal yourself, in your own voice, even if your writing is imperfect. Selection panels across youth programmes have become quick at spotting text that nobody actually wrote, and a plain sentence that sounds like a real person is worth more than a polished paragraph that sounds like nobody.
Also Check: ICYF International Media Training Camp 2026 in Türkiye
Frequently Asked Questions:
Do I need to have a team before I apply, or do I apply on my own?
The submission is made in your own name, with your own proposal, so nothing stops you applying by yourself. What the official page does not spell out is how teams are then formed once you arrive, whether participants are grouped by theme on the first morning or whether friends who both get selected can request to work together. Since the page is silent on that, plan for the possibility of being placed with strangers, and ring ALO GSB on 444 0 472 if attending with people you know actually matters to you. Do not sit on an application while you try to assemble a group.
Can I apply if I hold a passport from another country but live in Türkiye?
The published announcement names only an age band and an interest in the subject areas. It states no nationality requirement and no exclusion. The practical constraint is a different one: the application runs through the Ministry’s national youth portal, so the real question is whether you can register an account on it. Check that first, before the round dates get close, and if registration blocks you, contact kim@gsb.gov.tr rather than assuming you are ineligible.
Which language will the ideathon run in?
Plan for Turkish. The announcement, the application page and all seven host cities are Turkish, and the mentoring and jury sessions are almost certainly conducted in Turkish. If your Turkish is limited but you want to attempt it anyway, ask the organisers before applying rather than after, since three days of intensive team work in a language you are still learning is a very different experience from a written application.
I am 15 and still at school. Is it actually worth applying against university students?
Yes, and the age floor is deliberate rather than decorative. Two structural things work in your favour here. Nothing in the published criteria scores academic credentials, so you are not being ranked against anybody’s degree, and places are allocated city by city rather than in one national pool, so your real competition is whoever else applies in your region. What you should lean on is the thing an older applicant cannot borrow from you: a specific, recent observation from somewhere you spend time every single week. Written plainly, that carries further than experience you do not yet have.
Does applying cost anything, and should I ever pay someone to submit it for me?
The application is made directly on the Ministry’s own platform, and nothing in the published information mentions an application fee. As a general rule that holds well beyond this programme, never pay an agent, a consultant or a page on social media to submit a government youth application on your behalf. Anyone charging you for access to a public application portal is selling you something you already have for free, and handing over your personal details to them creates a problem you did not need. If you see the ideathon advertised with a fee attached anywhere, that listing is not the official one.
The bottom line
The COP31 Youth Climate Ideathon is an unusually low friction opportunity. There is no transcript to chase, no reference letter to beg for and no long form essay. What it asks for is a short, specific idea about a climate problem you actually understand, submitted through one government portal, in exchange for three days of mentoring and a jury presentation, with a route to the Antalya COP31 process for the strongest teams.
The two things to be clear eyed about are the ones the official page leaves open. There is no published application deadline, so treat your city’s event date as the effective cutoff and submit early. And there is no published statement on travel, accommodation or meals, so confirm that with the organisers before you commit money to getting there.
If you are inside the age band and one of those eight themes matches something you have watched happen in your own town, the next step is small: open the application on the E Genç platform, pick your city from the calendar above, and write the proposal this week rather than the week your round begins.
Organiser: Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Youth and Sports, Örnek Mahallesi, Oruç Reis Caddesi No:13, Altındağ, Ankara
Contact: kim@gsb.gov.tr or ALO GSB on 444 0 472
COP31 information: unfccc.int/cop31
