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.

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.

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.

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!

All photos ©Richard Heald Photography/Design Museum

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Here are a few words that we would like to highlight:

…about this year’s briefing in the words of Anna Bullus whose work is the inspiration for this year’s brief setter: “We are looking at everyday problems people have and how you can design simple solutions.”

…about why we do the Design Ventura project in the words of Catherine Ritman Smith, Head of Learning at the Design Museum: “We want to inspire and show young people by their own actions how great they are and what potential they have.”

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Anna left School to do a foundation course at Camberwell College of Art where she specialised in Three Dimensional Design and graduated with a Distinction. She went on to study Three Dimensional Design at the University of Brighton where her idea for the Gumdrop was first born. During her degree Anna specialised in plastics and material experimentation, which led to her developing an interest in recycling.

One day when walking home from University, Anna decided to pick up every piece of litter she could find, take it home and Google each piece to find out what happened to it once it became waste, and if there were other uses for each material. Inside an empty crisp packet was a lonely piece of chewing gum that soon became the brainchild for her Gumdrops.  When Anna Googled ‘chewing gum’, to look at who was recycling it and what it was made from, she could not find anyone or anything that re-used chewing gum. She quickly realised that chewing gum was everywhere, and was a major litter problem that was going unnoticed, and with that Anna decided to give gum a second life.

Anna found herself in her final year at Brighton in a Chemistry lab experimenting with different materials, temperatures, resins, you name it she tested it. After hundreds of experiments she came up with a mouldable material which could be used to manufacture a bin which would collect chewing gum and subsequently be recycled to make new bins, the Gumdrop bin was born. Anna breathed a huge sigh of relief knowing that she at last, had a product to use for her final year project, but little did she know this was going to become her career.

After leaving University with a First Class Honours Degree, Anna gained experience as a Product Designer with Hulger, and Case Furniture as a Junior Product Developer in London. At the same time Anna was showcasing her ‘gumdrop bin’ project worldwide, this generated a huge amount of demand so much so that Anna decided to leave Case Furniture to set up her own company, to tackle the global problem of chewing gum waste.

Anna needed to develop her material into a product that was commercially viable, so she approached the Polymers Department at the London Metropolitan University. Here, she spent three years developing her material from recycled chewing gum, now known as Gum-tec. Gum-tec can be used in existing manufacturing processes such as injection and blow moulding.

With her material ready and a new Gumdrop bin designed and produced, Anna launched the Gumdrops in 2010 with Legoland being one of the first sites to take them on. The Gumdrops have now travelled far and wide across the UK. Gumdrop Ltd has attracted some fantastic companies like BAA, Royal Mail, Amey, ISS, Westfield Shopping Centres and Wrigley’s. The Gumdrop Bins are proving to be a great success and reduced gum litter by up to 46% in the first 12 weeks of use.

It is not just the Gumdrop bin that has developed and grown. Gum-tec is now being used to make other products such as Gum-tec Gumboots, dog bowls, rulers, frisbees and sports cones. This range of products is set to expand and grow in the future.

Anna has gone on to be nominated and win many awards for her innovative ideas, including being nominated in 2010 by the Financial Times for a place in the ‘Top 50 Women in World Business Ranking,’ in the same year she was also placed in Management Today’s ’35 Women Under 35 to Change the Future’.  In 2011 she was selected as one of Kevin McCloud’s ‘Grand Designs Green Heroes’, and also selected as one of the ‘Top 20 Young Entrepreneurs’ by Start Your Own Business Magazine. In 2012 she won Tomorrow’s ‘Best Cleaning Product,’ was given a  ‘Homes & Gardens Eco Designer of the Year Award,’ and was also placed in Wired Magazine’s ‘Europe’s 100 Hottest Startups 2012.’

Anna aims to deliver innovation on a global scale and continues to pursue her goals by educating and inspiring the public to reduce chewing gum waste.

The future’s green with a drop of pink.

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Hello, I’m Peta Miller

I have been volunteering for Design Ventura since it was launched in 2010 and thoroughly enjoy being part of such an inspirational project run by a team of really committed people.

After each workshop, you leave feeling completely enthused. It really is great fun helping the students develop their ideas. The teachers have told me that the students really appreciate having ‘real’ designers to show their ideas to and get feedback. One boy in the winning team the year before last, was so motivated by the competition and full of ideas, I’m sure he’ll end up being the next Steve Jobs! I spoke to his parents at the award ceremony and they couldn’t believe the transformation in his character since taking part in the competition, they said he now points out to them objects that could be improved through design wherever they go!

I would highly recommend fellow designers, of all disciplines, getting involved, the amount of time you put in is totally up to you, and you get the satisfaction of knowing that you might have helped inspire future generations of designers.

Register to become a Design Ventura expert

See what Paul Jenkins from Triple Double has to say about volunteering for Design Ventura.

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Watch out for further news!

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Harrogate Grammar School in the Harrogate Informer. You can see the full article at http://www.harrogate-news.co.uk/2017/02/28/harrogate-grammar-school-wins-design-museum-ventura-prize-2016-17/

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