Good Thinking

2012 James Dyson Award now open for entries

2012 James Dyson Award now open for entries
Design students from 18 countries are being called upon to enter the 2012 James Dyson Award
Design students from 18 countries are being called upon to enter the 2012 James Dyson Award
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Design students from 18 countries are being called upon to enter the 2012 James Dyson Award
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Design students from 18 countries are being called upon to enter the 2012 James Dyson Award

Develop a problem solving invention. That's the straight-to-the-point brief for the 2012 James Dyson Award which is now calling on entries from design students around the world.

The award is open to university level students of product design, industrial design or engineering, (or graduate within four years of graduation) in 18 countries - Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UK and USA.

The international winner receives £10,000, with a further £10,000 going to the student's university department. Two international runners-up receive £2,000 each while national finalists get £1,000 each.

Australia is shooting for three in a row with the last year's prize being taken out by Edward Linacre for his Airdrop irrigation concept and the 2009 prize going to Samuel Adeloju for the Longreach Buoyancy Deployment System.

To enter, students need to submit footage, images and sketches, plus a detailed outline of the design process and the inspiration behind their idea to the James Dyson Award site.

Entries close on August 2, 2012, with the international winner to be announced on November 8.

"Young people have an unsullied view of the world," said James Dyson, the British industrial designer best known for his cyclonic vacuum cleaner range. "Budding engineers and designers can use their fresh perspective to develop wonderfully simple solutions to baffling problems. Original ideas and rigorously engineered projects will attract the attention of the judges. I challenge applicants to think big and use the award as a springboard for your idea."

For full details see jamesdysonaward.org

3 comments
3 comments
Oscar Wiegerink
Nice concept, but why just for students......20 000 quid could go along way to someone\'s education. There are plenty of clever, potentially genius people out there that could truly benefit from this kind of thing. A student at university needs that kind of prize much less than the one that dreams about it but could never afford it........at the end of the day the university gets the money anyway.....maybe a student wins maybe not, but you\'ll get access to a far greater think tank......just a thought.
Bruce H. Anderson
I agree with Oscar. there are lots of good ideas out there (I\'ve got a few myself) from people who have figured out why \"it\'s always been done it that way\" is not a good reason for continuing to do so. For an independent inventor, concept development and securing a patent can gobble up much of the potential prize. However, a university can subsidize the development cost and help protect the invention. And limiting the field to students keeps the number of appicants to a manageable level. Hmmm, maybe I could sign up for Summer Term.
christopher
They need suckers who won\'t know, or won\'t bill them, for having been taken advantage of in this way. Bingo = that\'s students.