Listen up, designers! Today sees the opening of the 2012 James Dyson Award, which invites young designers to invent a solution to a problem. The winner receives £10,000 to develop their idea, plus an additional £10,000 for their university department.
The award is open to any university-level student (or graduate within four years of graduation) of product design, industrial design or engineering. The university must be in one of the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UK and USA.
To enter, students should submit footage, sketches or images of their design, along with details of their inspiration and the design process, to www.jamesdysonaward.org. Here’s a good example of the sort of thing they’re after (from 2009 winner Automist):
Last year’s winner was Edward Linacre of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, who invented Airdrop, a drought-easing method of extracting moisture from the air inspired by desert beetles. He said “winning the award’s £10,000 prize has allowed me to develop and test the Airdrop system. It has the potential to help farmers around the world and I’m up for the challenge of rolling it out.”
Entries must be submitted by 2nd August 2012.
