Team UK Win 2023 Next-Gen PR World Cup

13 November 2023

Dana Hanna and Jack Everley of the United Kingdom have won Gold at the third annual ICCO Next Generation PR Word Cup. Dana and Jack were representing Ready10, having won the PRCA UK national competition. Silver was claimed by Zahra Fridie and David Gyampo representing South Africa, and Esther Marie and Abraham Christopher representing Singapore won Bronze.

From 30th October to 1st November, Dana and Jack competed against 7 other national and regional winners in the final round of the Cup to be crowned champions. In the final, pairs representing South Africa, Singapore, Denmark, Hungary, India, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, responded to a brief set by this year’s competition partner, the United Nations Development Programme. Teams were given the task of creating a campaign idea centered around the 13th of 17 Sustainable Development Goals and then presenting it to the international jury in a five-minute video pitch explaining how they would inspire global audiences to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

Boaz Paldi, Chief Communication Officer of UNDP and Jury Chair said:

"The communications industry has an important role to play in tackling the climate emergency. All of us must be actively involved and in order to reach everyone with this urgent call to action, the next generation competition participants, have the tools, knowledge and imagination to reach citizens across the globe.”

Rob Morbin, Executive Director, ICCO, said:

“Congratulations to the UK team for delivering a fresh and compelling idea, and to the teams from South Africa and Singapore, who has excellent pitched too, the competition was the closest its ever been. The United Nations Development Programme is leading the fight against climate crisis around the world, and we were honoured to have them as a partner. We extend our thanks to our global jury, who had the impossible task of picking a winner.

The Next-Gen world cup proves once again that there is an abundance of creative talent within our membership; our job now is to develop, retain and trust them.”

As part of the prize, the winning team will be flown to Istanbul to present at the 2024 ICCO Global Summit in October next year, with a main stage speaking slot. Both Dana and Jack will also join the Next-Gen Group – a youth lead advisory group fostering collaboration and creativity among young public relations professionals across the globe.

Launched in 2021, previous Gold winners are Denmark (2022) and Singapore (2021).