Prizes

Overall Prize

The Overall Winner of the Biodesign Challenge will take home the Glass Microbe, which will be passed to each year’s winners. Created by artist Luke Jerram, the Glass Microbe is a unique artwork and symbol of the intersection of art, design, and biology.

Runner Up

The Runner-Up Prize goes to the team with the second highest score with regard to the judging criteria and a vote among the judges.

Social Critique

2024 Prize Supported by NEW INC

The Outstanding Social Critique Prize is awarded to the team that best explores and most clearly communicates a criticism of biotechnology or communicates a social critique through the creative use of biotech. The team’s project will address the positive and negative effects of a technology or system on users and nonusers, potential societal reactions to these effects, and ways to mitigate negative ones. Students should consider the types of communities affected and potential shifts in disparity or equity that could arise from their project.

Narrative

2024 Prize Supported by Twist Bioscience

The Outstanding Narrative Prize is awarded to the team that best employs compelling visual renderings and creative storytelling techniques to communicate the science, context, and impact of their project. Students are expected to clearly outline the development of the process of their project and/or their personal growth through biodesign.

Digital Submission

Reserved for finalist teams that are unable to attend the Summit, the prize for Outstanding Digital Submission is awarded to the team that creates a 10-minute video that best captures their project thesis and design journey in a creative way. Judges will consider all aspects of the rubric when judging each video, including the scope and context of the project, originality of the idea, and clarity of the explanation of the work. The Outstanding Digital Submission winner will be chosen the week before and then shown alongside the Top Teams on the final day of the BDC Summit.

Display

The Outstanding Display Prize is awarded to the team with the most engaging exhibit at the BDC Gallery Show. Judges assess the clarity with which teams present their projects, the interactivity of the display, and how well the students address questions during the Gallery Show. Gallery Show exhibits should convey the team’s process, learnings, and final results of their project.

Art

2024 Prize Supported by BioBAT Art Space

The Outstanding Art Prize is awarded to the team that best provokes the audience into reimagining humans’ relationship with biotech, with other species, or with one another. Projects must be original work that challenge conventional assumptions and  demonstrates mastery of a chosen medium.

Science

2024 Prize Supported by Genspace

The Outstanding Science Prize is awarded to the team that designs and executes outstanding scientific experiments or exhibits mastery of scientific techniques. The experiments and their analysis must be performed by the students. Students must show how their experiments informed the design of their project.

Field Research

2024 Prize Supported by Cambridge University Press

The Outstanding Field Research Prize goes to the team that takes the initiative to go out into the field and interview experts as well as potentially affected communities in order to find and understand the real social impacts of their project. Students should quantitatively and/or qualitatively incorporate the data of their findings into their presentation and discuss how these discoveries informed the development of their project.

High School Project

The Outstanding High School Project Prize goes to the High School team that shows the most promise with their research, design, and presentation. These high schoolers strongly communicate their journey and intentions while acknowledging the personal and local contexts of their project. Please note that the Outstanding High School Project winner is also eligible for the Overall Prize or Runner-Up Prize.

Instructor

The Outstanding Instructor Prize is awarded to an instructor who was chosen by their students for providing an exceptional learning experience during the semester.