Efficiency for Access Design Challenge Showcases Prototypes at Dutch Design Week 2021
Six student teams from the Efficiency for Access Design Challenge 2020–2021 are showcasing their prototype designs in a virtual gallery at Dutch Design Week 2021.
Six student teams from the Efficiency for Access Design Challenge 2020–2021 are showcasing their prototype designs in a virtual gallery at Dutch Design Week 2021. Dutch Design Week, which is taking place from 16 –24 October in Eindhoven, is the largest design event in Northern Europe. It will present work from more than 2,600 designers to over 355,000 visitors. The event aims to spotlight innovation and the future of engineering.
Delivered by Efficiency for Access with the support of Engineers Without Borders UK, the Efficiency for Access Design Challenge is a global, multi-disciplinary competition that empowers teams of university students to help accelerate clean energy access. It is funded by UK aid and the IKEA Foundation. Now in its third year, the Efficiency for Access Design Challenge enables students to create affordable and energy-efficient appliances and technologies for low to middle income countries.
Student teams from 13 universities in Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Uganda, and the United Kingdom developed projects that focused on technologies including agriculture, cooking and healthcare.
Efficiency for Access’ virtual, interactive gallery at Dutch Design Week 2021 showcases six of the prototypes that students developed. Team 2020-03, from Independent University, Bangladesh, created a smart vaccine refrigeration and storage system, which harnesses the power of the sun to create ice banks that help keep vaccines at an optimum temperature. The students found the prototyping process “a great learning experience for our entire team. It gave us a lot of valuable lessons and helped us identify a lot of the design flaws at a very early stage and effectively troubleshoot errors in real time. The Efficiency for Access Design Challenge team’s continued support has made the prototyping experience a lot more insightful and effective by allowing us to not only discuss our ideas with industry experts, but also provide us with adequate funding to bring our project to life.”
The other teams showcased in the exhibition created a solar powered hydroponic fodder unit, a solar grain dryer, a solar water filtration and purification system, a solar powered electric cooker, and an evaporative cooler for the storage of fresh fish.
Enter Efficiency for Access’ virtual, interactive gallery and find out more about the projects here.