Dyson Is Looking For Malaysian Students To Win RM165,000 In Its Global Invention Contest
The James Dyson Award is now officially open for entries.
By John Lim — 04 Apr 2017, 07:18 PM
Dyson is a household brand among many Malaysians. But did you know James Dyson - the brand's founder - has an annual invention competition?
Sir James Dyson is a British industrialist whose claim to fame is the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner. Dyson’s invention helped revolutionise the vacuum cleaners along with other appliances in the world.
His brand has become a world renowned brand - specialising in fans, hand dryers, and of course, vacuum cleaners.
In 2002, Dyson set up the James Dyson Foundation to support design and engineering education.
Shortly after, the James Dyson Award was born. The annual award aims to challenge young people to "design something that solves a problem".
Past winners have helped tackle the problem of over fishing, transportation of vaccines in the developing world, global food waste, and mortality rates of premature babies.
Last year, Malaysian engineering student Mark Selvan successfully made it into the competition’s International Top 20 with his invention ‘Intelligent View System’ (IVS). Selvan, who's a student in University of Science (USM), created the device to eliminate blind zone areas through an installed automated hardware.
Now, Dyson and his team are looking to reward inventors who can solve a problem through intelligent engineering solutions
“There is normally a better solution to a problem. Engineers challenge convention and have brilliant ideas; The James Dyson Award looks for remarkable yet simple designs with the potential to have a huge impact on society.
Each year I am amazed by the ideas and I look forward to seeing this year’s raft of entries,” said Dyson.
The award currently runs in 23 countries, including Malaysia. It is open to university level students (and recent graduates) studying product design, industrial design, and engineering.
Here are the entry requirements:
Any university level student of product design, industrial design or engineering, or graduate within four years of graduation.
Team entries are possible - at least one team member must meet the above criteria and register as the team leader. All other members of the team must be, or have been within the last four years, enrolled for at least one semester in an undergraduate or graduate program at a university in a country chosen to participate in the James Dyson Award.
To enter the competition, you'd need to create a profile on the website and include a copy of your student or alumni status documentation. Once you've done so, you can upload a project.
The description of your design and development process should be included in your profile.
A video is strongly recommended, but not essential. The video should be less than 3 minutes and show both the development process of the design and your prototype in action. You will need to upload the video to YouTube or Vimeo first.
Entries will be reviewed through a number of stages - the first round of judging takes place at the regional level. A local panel of design and engineering professionals review all of the entries in their region to choose one national winner and four national finalists.
The national winner from each country will go through the final phase where the international winner is chosen by James Dyson.
The international winner will walk away with £30,000 (RM165,000) and another £5,000 (RM27,500) will be given to the winner's university department
Up to two international runners-up will win £5,000 (RM27,500) each. Each national winner will go home £2,000 (RM11,000) richer.
The competition is now accepting entries and it will close on 20 July 2017. National winners and finalists will be announced on 7 September 2017.
The international winner and finalists will be revealed on 26 October 2017.
Interested? Head over to the website here for more details!
Good luck to all aspiring inventors! :D