Two (make that three, see update, below) “activist” design competition have hit the press recently, both with money attached.
Metropolis Magazine
Metropolis’s annual Next Generation competition has a theme this year of “fixing our energy addiction.” The deadline is 30 January 09 and the prize is $10,000.
They say, “Rising energy costs are the focus of the worldwide competition, which is open to all designers in practice for 10 years or less, as well as to students. the magazine seeks entries at all scales of design–urban, landscape, building, interior, object, communication–and for every aspect of the man-made environment.”
The Financial Times Climate Change Challenge
With the same deadline, a coalition in the UK made up of the Financial Times, Forum for the Future and HP are offering £75,000 for an innovative solution to climate change problems. The competition seeks products, services or even social innovations.
They say, “The key requirement is that the innovations will have moved off the drawing board and demonstrated their feasibility, but will not yet be commercially sucessful. They will have been piloted or prototyped and might have attracted seed financing or gained recognition locally. Entries must specify how they would use the prize money to develop and extend the product or service.”
Let me know of other activist competitions to post here. Thanks.
update 6 December 08 by way of Mason Curry on the Stanford Product Design Alum list (Thanks!):
The Greener Gadgets Conference is also running a design competition in association with Core77, entry deadline January 15th.
They say, “This design competition challenges established design firms, emerging designers, and design students to come up with new and innovative solutions to address the issues of energy, carbon footprint, health and toxicity, new materials, product lifecycle, and social development.” Top prize for this one is $3000, with two $1000 runner up prizes.
Interesting that both the Green Gadgets and the FT compeitions are using a significant component of public voting to decide the winners.