Essay contests
Essay contests, in your language.
Each Plures contest opens with a broad question about how its country should prepare for a world transformed by advanced AI — every edition frames its own question, in its own language. Anyone can enter. The best answers earn prizes, publication, and a path into the field.
The idea
Why an essay contest?
You do not need to work in AI to have something worth saying about how your country should face it. A contest gives anyone with an argument a reason to make it well: a deadline, a real prize, and readers who take the essays seriously.
Good essays also lead somewhere. Reviewers and mentors read them, the strongest ideas get published and developed further, and their authors meet the people already working on these questions in their country.
The blueprint
How a contest works.
Reach beyond the field
The question is broad on purpose. Strong essays can come from law, psychology, economics, engineering, biology, or anywhere else — no AI background required.
Give people a reason to learn
The contest pairs the question with possible AI futures and curated readings. Writing a good essay means engaging seriously with the material, and judges reward independent thinking, including well-argued disagreement.
Bring the local field together
Researchers and organizations already working on AI join as reviewers, judges and mentors, strengthening the existing community while it grows.
Carry the best ideas into public life
Winning essays are published and adapted into op-eds with local media. Over time, we want to compile the strongest essays across countries into Global Voices in AI Governance, a series of reports on how different countries see the road ahead.
Open doors for talent
Promising participants are connected to career programs, fellowships and mentors in AI safety and governance, so a good essay can become the start of a career.
Live now
Brazil hosts the first contest.
The first Plures contest, the 1º Concurso de Ensaios - Brasil, is open now. The question, suggested themes, timeline, rules and pre-registration are on the contest site, in Portuguese.
Visit the contest site ↗Work with us
Bring a contest to your country.
We are turning the Brazilian pilot into a blueprint any partner can run: the playbook, the grading rubric, a submission platform, and support from our team. If you would like to run or sponsor a contest where you live, we would love to hear from you.
partnerships@plures.org ↗