Global Student Design Competition Announces Winning, Game-Changing Sustainable Solutions — Platform for Economy of the Future Also Extending Grant, to Expand Programs through 2025

The winners of Wege Prize 2021 are:

1st Place ($15,000) – AgriTrade Hub

Institutions represented: Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Energy and Natural Resources, University of Ghana, and EARTH University in Costa Rica

Disciplines represented: Biological science, agricultural science, natural resource management, geological engineering, and political science

Solution: Addressing the wicked problem of increased logging in Ghana creating wood waste and sawdust – about 97,000 metric tons annually – and the mismanagement of waste disposal, the team’s solution proposes transforming wood waste into nutrient-based substrates for mushroom production, leading to mushroom compost for use in fertilizing and growing forest and ornamental trees, thereby eliminating all forms of wood waste and mitigating environmental impacts.

2nd Place ($10,000) – Sutote

Institutions represented: EARTH University in Costa Rica, Nkhoma University in Malawi, Hubert Kairuki Memorial University, and the Water Institute in Tanzania

Disciplines represented: Medicine, business management, agricultural science, natural resource management, water resources and irrigation engineering

Solution: Synthetic pesticides are a wicked problem the world over, extremely harmful to health and the environment. In Tanzania, pesticide residues have been detected in the samples of irrigation water, and this team is devising a closed-circle production system for tomatoes using organic pesticides from the Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia Diversifolia).

3nd Place ($5,000) – The Chilensis

Institutions represented: Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and University of Santiago de Chile

Disciplines represented: Integral design, physical engineering, chemical engineering, business administrationSolution: With overcrowding already a wicked problem in Santiago, Chile, the pandemic in 2020 has only aggravated the impact. The Chilensis is developing sound isolators using discarded palm leaves waste to improve the quality of life by providing privacy. Old palm leaves are treated as waste, but they have significant sound isolation properties and help address the challenge while creating a circular economic opportunity.Two other finalist teams—Team Musana and Banga Na—were each honored with a $1,000 Finalist Award:

Banga Na, with students from Ghana and Tanzania, tackles the high-waste problem of cashew apples causing bugs, environmental, and economic problems for local farmers in Ghana. For this wicked problem, the team’s solution of adding value to cashew apples by converting the fruit to wine, juice, and organic fertilizer, generating income and employment from waste and improving food security and economic growth in the country.

The finalists and winners emerged from 11 interdisciplinary student teams from around the world shortlisted to advance to the final phase of the competition. Of the selected teams, eight included participants from African countries, and seven of the teams have been focused on food-related or agricultural problems facing the world today, addressing food insecurity, production inefficiencies, waste and environmental degradation.

“We’ve been so inspired by the quality of the concepts advanced by these teams, and we’re also very gratified to see the international, collaborative and cross-disciplinary nature of the student teams that participated in Wege Prize this year,” adds KCAD’s DeBruyn.

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

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.

This year, five finalists for Wege Prize were interviewed by GreenBiz editor Deonna Anderson for a video series available here:

Due to COVID-19, the 2020 and 2021 editions of the Wege Prize Awards were held in an entirely virtual format. Despite the challenges of social distancing, the judges applauded the participants for developing some of the strongest ideas in the competition’s eight-year history.

Wege Prize Extended for Five More Years

Thanks to the continuing financial support of The Wege Foundation, Wege Prize 2022 through 2026 will again be open to any undergraduate or graduate student in the world and will be focused on developing a circular economy. New in 2022, Wege Prize has been extended for five more years of competitions, with a new growth plan to double the prize purse to total $65,000 USD. Wege Prize will also double its pool of judges in 2022, meaning that more students will benefit from the interactions and teaching by renowned experts participating next year. In addition, KCAD will begin a process of reviewing ways to expand Wege Prize to serve more students and communities as it shares ideas for the circular economy to an even wider audience.

Formal team registration for Wege Prize 2022 will open this August. In the meanwhile, KCAD encourages interested faculty, students and professionals to begin making connections, building teams, and generating ideas right away for this highly competitive, global design competition.