FIRST ANNUAL STUDENT ECOLOGICAL DESIGN COMPETITION
Topic: Food Systems
The Baltimore Colleges and Universities for a Sustainable Environment (B’CaUSE) is excited to share the FIRST ANNUAL STUDENT ECOLOGICAL DESIGN COMPETITION open to all undergraduate and graduate students from Baltimore Area Universities.
The competition is hosted by the Hopkins Ecological Design Initiative (HEDI). For the 2019-2020 academic year, this funded competition focuses on the ecological problematic of “Food Systems.”
HEDI invites teams of undergraduate and graduate students from Baltimore-area universities to design and prototype new devices, conceptual systems, platforms, spaces, flows, or other creative designs that address problems in local or regional food systems.
Five finalist teams will each receive $500 to develop their designs for display in a Spring 2020 public exhibition in Gallery Q in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library on the JHU Homewood Campus. The winning team will receive $2,000 in seed funds to carry the project forward.
Teams may submit proposals on topics such as:
- Food waste: packaging waste, recycling, organic waste, composting, Baltimore city food waste management
- Food access: food insecurity, distribution, choice architecture, policy
- Food literacy: education, cooking, civic engagement
- Food environments: service, urban food production
- Food and health: undernourishment, obesity, disease
- Other food-related problems amenable to design intervention
Competition teams are encouraged to participate from any Baltimore college or university. Teams are encouraged to have at least 3-5 members, ideally from multiple academic disciplines, and composed of undergraduates, graduates, or both.
Individuals interested in participating in the competition are invited to attend HEDI’s Food Systems Design Incubator on Friday, November 8, in HEDI’s mobile geodesic dome studio (location TBA). There, groups will be organized around the submission categories in order to brainstorm, pitch ideas, and form teams for the competition, if partners with a common interest have not already been identified.
Following a public “pitch” competition and judging on Friday, December 6, five winning teams will be given funding to develop a prototype of their designs. These finalists’ projects will be displayed publicly as a month-long JHU Homewood campus exhibition in Gallery Q. The exhibit will launch in April 2020. A final judging event and reception will be held in May to announce the overall contest winners, who will receive $2000 in seed funds for further implementation.
For more information and more specific instructions on proposal submission, please get in touch with the organizers ecodesign@jhu.edu.
Posted: November 5, 2019, 2:21 PM
