At this time we are no longer accepting submissions to the 2008-2009 Challenge, “Designing Water’s Future.” For those of you who submitted, thank you for participating! We will announce the jury’s results in early March 2009.

If you were unable to participate this year, check back later for information on the 2010 Challenge.

Who is eligible to participate

• Current undergraduate and graduate students
• Students who graduated in 2007
• Students are encouraged to form interdisciplinary teams led by a faculty member or tutor. For example, your team may include students from design, business, engineering and/or and science programs.

Submission process

Step 1: Who are you?

Step 2: Project description (500 words maximum)

Step 3: Project proposal (Keynote; PowerPoint; PDF; video/website)

Step 4: Review

Optional: Join the album

Submission requirements

• All materials must be written in English
• Project proposal that demonstrates your idea with imagery, illustrations or other visual elements. Please consider the following questions when preparing your proposal:
  1. What issue are you addressing?
  2. Who is your intended audience? For example, are you pitching an idea to a potential investor or are you trying to send a message to a local community?
  3. How will you reach this audience?
  4. What is your project’s intended outcome?
  5. What steps will you take to achieve the outcome?
  6. What research did you do to learn about your issue?
  7. How did you arrive at your idea?
  8. What are the estimated costs for implementing your project?
• Optional: Join the album.

Schedule

• December 15, 2008: Deadline for entries
• February 2009: Finalists announced
• February-March 2009: Finalists refine concepts and presentations
• Late March 2009: Finalists (up to four per team) invited to the Aspen Environment Forum in Colorado, USA, to discuss proposals with designers, scientists, journalists and business leaders
• August 2009: Finalists (up to four per team) invited to Copenhagen for a collaborative workshop in connection with the INDEX: Award 2009; implementation plans developed with venture capitalists and foundations
• Late August 2009: One finalist awarded INDEX: | AIGA Aspen Design Challenge Prize, a $10,000 grant to be put towards implementation of the winning project
• October 2009: Finalists’ projects published
• November-December 2009: Selection of projects presented to participants of the World Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen

Apply Now

You’ll be able to edit your application until December 15, 2008

Materials to help you get started

• • Africa case study (1.5 MB pdf)

• • China case study (486 KB pdf)

• • Mexico case study (680 KB pdf)

Questions?

Student participants may submit questions to the program team at any point during the course of working on the project.

Send us your questions.