More than 600 designers and creative thinkers have entered their concepts for the What Design Can Do Refugee Challenge. The open call for idea submission finished on Friday, 20 May. This week experts will start working with participants to refine and improve the concepts. Only after this so-called contribute and improve phase will the shortlist of the best entries be drawn up. This list will be announced on 20 June.
With the ambitious Refugee Challenge, What Design Can Do hopes to generate ideas to improve the lives of refugees. The five best concepts will be announced on 1 July during What Design Can Do Live in Amsterdam. All finalists will each receive 10,000 euros and individual support in elaborating their idea.
Feedback
The UN Refugee Agency (UNCHR) – who together with IKEA Foundation support the Refugee Challenge – has set up a special innovation platform where experts can view and discuss the entries over the coming weeks. What Design Can Do has invited over thirty experts from various disciplines to provide feedback to participants, so that their definitive concepts are as strong as possible when the selection phase starts. Everyone who registers and logs in to the platform can help to improve the entries too. Between twenty and thirty concepts will make it onto the shortlist.
Among those who have submitted work to the Refugee Challenge are designers, artists, entrepreneurs, students and staff from NGOs in 69 countries, including Ghana, Pakistan, Brazil, Turkey, Switzerland, Greece and Lebanon. The countries with the biggest number of submissions are the Netherlands, USA, Sweden, Germany, and Spain. A surprisingly high number of ideas have focused on improving integration between refugees and host communities.
20 million refugees
The challenge focuses on the search for concepts that improve the standard of living among refugees waiting in urban areas for asylum or temporary accommodation. According to the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, they make up 60 percent of the 20 million people who have fled their country.
From the shortlist, the five best concepts will be chosen by a jury that includes Marcus Engman, Head of Design for IKEA, arabist Petra Stienen, and Sonia Ben Ali, founder of Urban Refugees. The five winners will be presented with their prize by Bert Koenders, Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs, during the two-day What Design Can Do Live conference in Amsterdam on 30 June and 1 July. The winners then have another half a year to make their concept work.
Top image: Refugees journey (photo: © UNHCR/Andrew McConnell)