What’s the DOL Worker Safety and Health App Challenge and How Can You Enter?

The contest is called the DOL Worker Safety and Health App Challenge, and its purpose is to help OSHA build tools to educate young workers about safety in the workplace.

Why this challenge now? DOL says it’s because:

• Roughly 18 million workers in the United States are 24 years old or younger and constitute almost 15 percent 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.

How the App Challenge Works

The 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, NIOSH, state workers’ 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 PPE.

---

BLR’s OSHA Training System offers dozens of completely prewritten, affordable program to handle your OSHA-mandated training needs. Try it at no cost. Get the details.

---

• 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
• 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
• Data visualization

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

Prizes

Prizes for winning submissions include a:

• Grand Prize ($15,000)
• Safety and Health Data Award ($6,000)
• Workers’ Rights Award ($6,000)
• People’s Choice Award ($3,000)

---

Try OSHA Training System for a complete solution to your mandated training needs. You can do so at no cost or risk. Read more.

---

Timeline

The timeline for the contest is as follows:

• Submission period ends September 16
• Public voting runs until September 16
• Judging will be held September 17-28
• Winners will announced on October 3

For more information about the challenge, including rules and how to enter a submission, click here.