BDC on Exhibit

Biodesign Challenge students and alumni projects continued to reach new audiences around the world. Here's where they headed in 2019:

• GIY Bio Buddies toy kits were on display at the Lego Idea Studio in Denmark

• Betting on Baby presented to the World Economic Forum in July

• Kerasynth was featured in the exhibition and symposium, "Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping Our Genetic Futures" at North Carolina State University

• Plastomach exhibited at the Kitchen Gallery at Swale House on Governors Island in New York City

• AlgiKnit showcased at BioFabricate's Design Lab in London

• Seven 2019 BDC teams exhibited at MIT's Global Community Bio Summit

• Metagenomic Field Kit showed in a traveling exhibition called DESIGN AND SCIENCE at Eastern Michigan University

• ORMaterials exhibited in Design Transfigured/Waste Reimagined at the Georgetown University Art Galleries

• Team Denimaize showed their work at Biodesign Here Now as part the 2019 London Design Festival

BDC Alumni News

Biodesign Challenge students and alumni won awards, raised money, and more:

• UniAndes team Woocoa, winner of the 2018 Animal Free Wool Prize, spent a week in London with the sustainability team at Stella McCartney to continue their research on sustainable materials and to meet top artists, designers, and biologists who are driving the emerging field of biodesign.

• BDC 2019 alumni from National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow presented their BDC 2019 project Mycokarst to the President of the Republic of Tatarstan.

• 2017 alumni from Royal College of Art received $100,000 in funding for their project-turned-company Olombria from THRIVE, an agtech accelerator.

• Jiwon Woo, UPenn alumnus from BDC 2016, received an honorable mention at Prix Ars Electronica, a world-renowned festival for art, technology and society, for her project Mother’s Hand Taste (Son-mat).

• Team Sorbit from the University of California, Davis, which won Runner-Up and Outstanding Science at BDC 2018, received two prizes at this year's Core77 Design Awards. The students came home with the Runner-Up Prize and the Community Choice Prize for the Design Education Initiative category. 

• BDC instructor, Giovanna Danies Turano, was the recipient of the 2019 L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards. Danies Turano is a Professor in the Design Department at Universidad de los Andes. Read more about her award.

We awarded 2 sponsored prizes: stella mccartney & orta

The Stella McCartney Prize for Sustainable Fashion was awarded to the team that explored new fashion alternatives that are biological, sustainable, ethical, and free of animal products. The prize went to FIT’s Flora Fur. The ORTA Prize for Bioinspired Textiles Processes was awarded to the team that explored sustainability in the fabrication and treatment of textiles. The prize went to RMIT’s Enzer.

high schools entered the competition

Among the 37 classrooms from nine countries that participated in Biodesign Challenge 2019, three high school teams from across the United States joined the competition. One of the high school teams, GIY Bio Buddies, won the prizes for Runner Up and Outstanding Field Research.

BDC offered travel awards to finalist teams

BDC was able to offer travel awards to three finalist teams to attend the BDC Summit in NYC. A big thanks to Science Sandbox for its support for these awards!

bdc became members at new inc

BDC became a member of NEW INC, the New Museum's incubator space. Through our residency, we're able to connect with artists, designers, and community organizers who are part of the NEW INC community. Learn more about NEW INC here. 

bdc founder and director keynoted at cumulus

BDC founder and director Daniel Grushkin keynoted the 2019 Cumulus Design Conference in Bogotá, Colombia.

Alumni teams Woocoa and PseudoFreeze from Universidad de los Andes also presented their research and projects to conference attendees.