How to Use the Generating Your Own Subtopic Guide

Coming up with your own subtopic for one of our three global topics can be intimidating if you don’t know where to start. The global topics are often broad and encompass a lot of challenges, but your video can only be 60 seconds long. This is why we provide some subtopics to start, however, choosing your own subtopic is a great way to make your video standout from the crowd. It can give your video a more personal and meaningful feel. In order to make the process easier this year, we’ve added a Generating Your Own Subtopic Guide to the end of each of this year’s topic backgrounders. 

The guide includes a list of questions and some handy tips that will help you to formulate your own subtopic. The guide is simple and intuitive to use! You don’t even have to answer every question listed on the guide, but the more you answer, the more material you will have to generate a subtopic. Reading through the backgrounders and exploring the resources linked before you answer the questions could also help you get a better foundation for each topic to help you generate new ideas. Make sure to answer the questions honestly and thoroughly, so that you will land on something that has meaning to you. Many past winners have stated this as being key to their video making process.

When asking yourself the probing questions listed in the guide; take notice of what stands out or repeating trends in your answers. Those are what you should focus on to generate your subtopic! If you’re working as part of a group, have every group member answer the questions separately and then come together to see where you have either similar or differing opinions/experiences. Either one could help start a good discussion, that could lead to an interesting subtopic.