The James Dyson Award, the international student design and engineering competition run by the James Dyson Foundation, is now open for entries and calling for novel inventions that tackle pressing real-world problems.
Young inventors’ ideas have the potential for global impact
Open to all engineering and design students and recent graduates, the Award seeks ambitious designs that address a global issue, from cancer diagnosis to natural disasters. With global recognition offered to an International Winner and a Sustainability Winner, past winners include an off-road ambulance trailer to rescue the wounded from conflict zones, a wearable biomedical device for pain-free, low-cost intraocular pressure (IOP) testing device for glaucoma, and a device to control bleeding from stab wounds.
Established in 2005, the competition has now supported over 400 young inventors with more than PHP71 million in prize money, and more than two-thirds of past global winners have pursued the commercialization of their ideas. The International Winner and Global Sustainability Winner will scoop PHP 2.1 million to support their next steps, while PHP348K is offered to each National Winner in the 30 markets where the Award is run.
Sir James Dyson, founder and chief engineer, said: “The world needs more doers — problem-solvers, not grandstanders, who are ready to take on the problems of our time. Every year the James Dyson Award gives young people a platform for their medical and environmental inventions, and much more. It’s their ‘wrong thinking’ that leads to breakthroughs, whether it’s the development of a new sustainable material, or the application of clever engineering principles to help improve people’s lives. I look forward to seeing what new inventions this year’s Award brings!”
Past winners go on to achieve substantial success
Previous recipients of the Award have gone on to great success thanks to the global media exposure and injection of funds that the prize offers. Last year’s Philippines national James Dyson Award winner attempted to solve the problem of limited access to STEM resources by creating Make-roscope, an affordable and portable keychain that converts any smartphone or tablet into a microscope, giving students easy access to the microscopic world. Today, Jeremy has achieved commercial success with an expanded online business for the Make-roscope and has onboarded a distributor to bring his invention onto the shelves of leading stores in the country. He was also selected by the Royal Academy of Engineering to be among the global innovators joining the Leaders in Innovation Fellowships (LIF) program for 2024, with an opportunity to receive a hybrid package of business support and training that will culminate in a UK residential mission.
De Leon says: “Because of the James Dyson Award, we will expand our goal of reaching not just Filipino students but every student in the world, so they will be engaged in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and we will have more researchers, scientists, engineers, innovators, and especially change makers.”
Other past winners around the world have included:
- AuREUS (Philippines) – an evolution for walls/windows, and uses technology synthesized from upcycled crop waste to absorb stray UV light from sunlight and convert it to clean renewable electricity.
- The Golden Capsule (South Korea) – a hands-free intravenous (IV) device designed for disaster zones, which can be strapped to the patient and does not rely on gravity.
- HOPES (Singapore) – a wearable device for pain-free, low-cost glaucoma testing that patients can do at home.
- PlasticScanner (Netherlands) – an open-source scanning device to help fight plastic waste by detecting what type of plastic an item is.
- BlueBox (Spain) – an at-home cancer screening solution designed to encourage more women to test for breast cancer.
- mOm incubators (UK) – a low-cost collapsible, portable infant incubator, which has been successfully used to save babies’ lives in Ukraine.
National winners and runners-up will be whittled down to a global Top 20 by a panel of expert Dyson engineers across different disciplines, and finally, Sir James Dyson himself will pick the best.
Deadline for entries is July 17. The National Winners will be announced on September 11, the global Top 20 shortlist on October 16, and the Global Winners on November 13.