Global Student Design Competition 
Shortlists Game-Changing Sustainable Solutions for 2021

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - March 18, 2021 - PRLog -- Covid. Climate. Injustice. Waste. Disparity. Hunger. Poverty. So much is at critical mass in the world that there's no choice but to address multiple interconnected global issues simultaneously. Wege Prize, the international student design competition to create solutions to today's "wicked problems," is an agent of change for these lofty ambitions.

For its 2021 edition, Wege Prize — organized by Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University (KCAD) — has announced 11 interdisciplinary student teams from around the world shortlisted for advancement to the final phase of the competition. Of the selected teams, eight include participants from African countries, and seven teams are focused on food-related or agricultural problems facing the world today.

"We are very pleased with not only the quality of the concepts advanced by these teams to help power a transition from our current linear economy—in which we take, make, and dispose—to a circular economy that's regenerative by design," says Gayle DeBruyn, KCAD professor and Wege Prize organizer. "We're also very gratified to see the international, collaborative and cross-disciplinary nature of the student teams under consideration as semi-finalists."

Wege Prize was established in 2013 to solve the most complex, layered problems.  The competition requires teams capable of working across the barriers that too often divide us — to drive systems-level change. The KCAD prize offers a powerful and accessible platform for any university student in the world to develop tangible solutions that often find real-world acceptance and application.

Examples from recent Wege Prize teams have included Rutopia, whose 2019 concepts for eco-sensitive tourism have got the attention of top editors at Forbes, among others. Another is Hya Bioplastics, which created a process for blending dried water hyacinth fibers and boiled cassava starch to produce a biodegradable raw material used to make disposable food packaging. The venture's cofounders have been accepted into a prestigious incubator and have advanced their business.

Teams for Wege Prize 2021, seen at http://www.wegeprize.org and accepted into the semi-final phase III, include:
Agritrade Hub (Ghana)
Banga Na (Ghana)
Matooke Republic (Uganda)
Musana (Uganda)
Plant Space (Rwanda)
Recipe for Leftovers
Safir
Sutote (Tanzania)
The Chilensis (Chile)
Wastezon (Rwanda)
Water Sprinklers (Rwanda)
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About Wege Prize
Wege Prize, developed by KCAD's Wege Center for Sustainable Design with the support of The Wege Foundation, is an annual competition that ignites games-changing solutions for the future by inspiring college students around the world to collaborate across boundaries and redesign the way economies work. More: wegeprize.org.