Design Ventura 2020 Celebration Event

Posted by Elysia Thorpe on June 16 2021

Design Ventura

On Friday 11 July 2021 the Design Ventura team welcomed the top seven shortlisted schools to the Design Museum for a day of celebration.

The event was kicked off by Fiona MacDonald, Head of Learning at the Design Museum, who was followed by Tim Marlow, CEO and Director of the Design Museum and Christoph Woermann, Chief Marketing Officer at Deutsche Bank.

To begin the celebrations schools enjoyed a talk about the Design Museum’s exhibition Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street by Rachel Hajek, Assistant Curator at the museum, followed by visiting the exhibition.

Sneakers Unboxed Curator Talk by Rachel Hajek

Students enjoying the Sneakers Unboxed exhibition

In the afternoon students enjoyed lunch followed by the award announcements! The award ceremony was live streamed so friends and family could watch at home. The highlights can be watched here: Winners Announcements

The Awards

Fiona MacDonald began by announcing the top Design Ventura Online Mini Challenge winners, a online challenge for year 7 & 8’s rolled out during the pandemic with over 3,000 entries. The shortlist was:

Betsy – Davison High School
Ivy – The Nottingham Emmanuel School
Emma – Simon Langton Girls’ Grammar School
Tom – Liverpool College
Lara – Walthamstow School for Girls
Aoife – Didcot Girls’ School.

Lareena Hilton, Global Head of Brand Communications and CSR at Deutsche Bank announced Liam Anderson from Trinity School as the Teacher of the Year award. Judges then took it in turn to announce the Design Ventura awards:

Outstanding Finalist: The Burgess Hill Academy with ‘Play Cube’
Commendation for Good Design Process: County Upper School with ‘Safari Matchimals’
Commendation for Entrepreneurship: Ferndown Upper School with ‘Build & Play’
Commendation for Most Market Ready Product: Trinity School with ‘Magic Leaf’
Third Place runner up: Davison High School for Girls with ‘Positivitree’
Second Place runner up: Parkside Community College with ‘The Shoe Button’

Brief Setter Yinka Ilori announced the winning team Heckmondwike Grammar School with ‘Sow Beautiful’, a flower seed canon used to grow flowers and create a source of pollen for bees. You can watch their pitch video here.

The winning team from Heckmondwike Grammar School with Yinka Ilori

Following the award ceremony, the Design Ventura Exhibition was unveiled including all the student made prototypes. This year the display included the top winning designs from the online mini challenge and the Design Ventura 2019 past winning product Creative [Un]blocks by Twynham School. The exhibition will run from 12 June – 22 August 2021. You can book free tickets to see the exhibition here.

Schools visiting the Design Ventura Exhibition

The winning team with their prototype of ‘Sow Beautiful’

Following the event, a number of the school groups were interviewed for press, you can read some student insights into their products on PBS News Hour and you can see the winning team talking about Sow Beautiful on Leeds Local TV.

Thank you to all the schools, judges and guests for attending for this very special event celebrating the achievements of the Design Ventura 2020 finalists!