Teams Announced in Wege Prize 2025

Posted on Categories Education, Environment

90 student teams move on to Phase 1 Preliminary Judging.

These 450 participants come from 144 academic institutions in 41 countries around the world.

Grand Rapids, Mich., October 16, 2024 – This year, a precedent-setting applicant group of 130 five-person teams worldwide were narrowed down to 90 teams for Phase 1, the largest pool of participants in Wege Prize’s 12-year history, to compete in the international student competition for circular innovation. In all, the 90 collaborating teams represent 450 students hailing from 31 countries, including 164 academic disciplines from 144 academic institutions in 41 countries. According to Wege Prize lead Gayle DeBruyn, the preliminary judging panel brings together regional, multidisciplinary experts, who will provide valuable feedback and expertise to these teams, advancing a selection of around 30 teams to Phase 2. Newly added to Wege Prize’s expanded, 15-person panel of Preliminary Judges, says DeBruyn, are:

  • Yumiko Jakobcic, Ph.D., Director of Grand Valley State University’s Office of Sustainability Practices

  • Fernando Ramirez, co-founder and designer of Common Object Studio

  • Audrey Whaling, program manager for the Emerging Lansing 2030 District

  • Deborah M. Steketee, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of Sustainable Business at Aquinas College

  • Milinda Ysasi, CEO of Grow, and the City of Grand Rapids’ 2nd ward Commissioner.

Along with the Preliminary Judges, Wege Prize’s global panel of Core Judges round out the competition’s diverse and distinguished experts. This year, the core group is joined by Skot Welch, Principal/Founder of Global Bridgebuilders (GBB), an international firm focusing on organizational development, cultural transformation and inclusion. You can read the full bios of all of the judges on this page.

When the seven-month competition moves into its second phase, Wege Prize’s Core Judges will guide the remaining five-person teams as they work to advance through the four-phase competition by refining their innovative concepts into authentic uses that support the circular economy. The core judges’ subsequent selection of 15 semi-finalist teams in January will be followed by five chosen finalist teams in March, who will present their completed concepts in May, live, for the judging panel as they vie for Wege Prize’s top spot and $30,000 USD. Second and third place teams will earn $20,000 and $10,000, respectively, with each of the two remaining finalist teams receiving $2,500 for their inventive concepts. England-based core judge Jo Williams says the circular economy isn’t about tweaking the linear economy, but about embracing a completely different system where materials and capital are continually circulated:

“What the circular economy offers… is a different way of creating profit,” says Williams. “And in doing so, it also creates a different way or recognizes, that the system we live in is equally important, so we’ve got to look at value in a broader sense.”

To date, more than 1,750 students have participated in Wege Prize, helping promote the circular economy among the multidisciplinary, cultural, and institutional participants, with the competition’s top teams winning more than $435,000 in total cash awards during the past 11 competitions. Many teams have progressed insights gleaned through Wege Prize’s judges though incubator hubs and private business models, furthering real-world solutions to environmental, energy, waste, hunger, agricultural and other challenges.

“The dynamic synergy between Wege Prize’s student teams and the competition’s expert judges creates pathways that move the inventive concepts into workable solutions that support a circular economy,” says Gayle DeBruyn, KCAD professor and Wege Prize organizer. “As more student teams come together for Wege Prize, our larger judging panel ensures that every team’s inventive solution is considered with absolute attention to each aspect of the product or service’s design and how it advances the circular economy, sustainable business operations, and the natural environment.”

For inquiries on press opportunities, interviews, and more, contact Karen M. Shan at karen@ccsullivan.com.

Read this article on the wegeprize.org website.

Applications Open for Wege Prize 2025

Posted on Categories Environment

Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA August 19, 2024 —

Big ideas for making the world better can earn big money for college and university students.

Now through October 6, applications are open for Wege Prize 2025, the international design competition where top teams win a prize pool of $65,000 USD for their sustainable, circular approaches to solving some of today’s biggest problems in pollution, hunger, waste and more.

Wege Prize winners in the past few years included African students with a charcoal cooling concept that slashes post-harvest losses for vegetable farmers, U.S. students with an innovative wastewater treatment technique to extract raw materials for reuse, and Canadian students addressing the issue of e-waste by extracting valuable rare earth elements (REEs).

Have an exciting idea to share? See details here.

 About Wege Prize 2025

Organized by Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University (KCAD), Wege Prize is an annual competition that ignites game-changing solutions for the future by inspiring college and university students worldwide to collaborate in teams across institutional, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries to redesign products and systems for a more circular economy.

With the support of The Wege Foundation, Wege Prize has advanced students work worldwide for a more sustainable future since 2013. The competition’s multi-disciplinary, five-person teams identify a “wicked problem” to address and develop a compelling solution — products, services, systems, and more — that builds on core principles of the circular economy by:

  • Helping accelerate the transition to a circular economy and a shift towards renewables.

  • Providing unique value and exploring untapped potential through innovation.

  • Demonstrating the potential for marketability, profitability, and financial sustainability.

  • Exhibiting research, user consideration and affected communities in all aspects of the solution’s design.

During the nine-month process, five-person teams compete to advance through the competition’s four phases, growing their ideas from informal proposals into real-world solutions informed by research, market analysis, prototyping and testing. At each phase, direct feedback from experts in sustainable business, design, the circular economy, materials, and more help the teams strengthen their ideas for real-world applications. Then, five selected finalist teams will present their game-changing ideas next May, with each of the winning teams sharing in the competition’s $65,000 USD prize pool.

Last year, Wege Prize encompassed an initial pool of 58 competing teams in varied academic disciplines representing 38 countries across five continents. Apply at www.wegeprize.org/apply.

By collaborating, designing, planning, and testing, the teams’ winning solutions earn wide attention in the news media and are recognized by their institutions.

For press inquiries, more information, and for interviews of Wege Prize’s past winners and current organizers, contact C.C. Sullivan.

Congratulations to the Wege Prize 2024 Winning Teams!

Posted on Categories Environment

Student Winners From Africa, Costa Rica, and U.S. Universities Recognized for Solutions to Complex Challenges, Benefiting the Circular Economy  

2024 Wege Prize winners announced: First-place team from Africa awarded $30,000 for slashing post-harvest tomato losses with super-efficient charcoal cooling huts.

 Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA June 04, 2024 — Three forward-thinking university student teams from around the globe have emerged as the top winners in 2024 Wege Prize. Recognized for their game-changing solutions to further a circular economy, each of the team’s sustainable approaches to the development and consumption of products addresses unwanted waste and consumer benefits through new, real-world designs.

Organized by Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University (KCAD), Wege Prize invites five-person student teams worldwide to collaborate for sustainable solutions to today’s “wicked problems” in ways that support a circular economy. Each of the five finalist teams is sharing in the competition’s $65,000 USD in prize money for developing solutions that address waste, hunger, and the climate.

 Wege Prize has identified winning teams in the interdisciplinary competition for more than a decade, with this year’s top three groups hailing from three countries and six academic institutions. The awarded teams ascended from an initial pool of 58 competing teams representing 38 countries across five continents as they advanced through a phased selection of contenders during the nine-month, multiphase competition.

 Faced with the task of redefining conventional production and consumption practices, the competition’s teams are challenged to invent environmentally and economically sound protocols through multidiscipline, immersive process across diverse areas of study, cultures, and institutions. Their in-depth research, testing, and prototyping are refined through direct feedback from the competition’s panel of expert judges.

 “We are excited for this year’s winners and proud of all our student teams,” says Gayle DeBruyn, a KCAD professor who leads Wege Prize. “With the teams’ innovative ideas helping advance a regenerative, circular economy by reinventing how products are developed and services are provided, and the dedication and guidance of our judges, we move closer to real-world solutions to pressing global issues.”

The winners of Wege Prize 2024 are:

  • 3rd Place ($10,000): EcoFeed Pioneers, a team evolving animal feed to reduce reliance on imported scarce crops by devising innovative biorefinery techniques to create a sustainable food supply.

  • 2nd Place ($20,000): Senene Farm, a group taking on Tanzania’s child malnutrition by increasing the production of the Senene insect as an alternative protein source through a rearing facility that creates a more circular production cycle.

  • 1st Place ($30,000): FruiFresh, a team working to alleviate Rwanda’s post-harvest tomato losses with evaporative and energy-efficient charcoal cooling facilities crafted from locally available materials
    for produce storage.

 Two other student teams, Huuzagro and EcoCycle, each received $2,500 awards as finalists.

A slide from Senene Farm’s presentation.

“This competition gave platform, time and space to come together and think on a possible solution that can bring us to work together,” says Anthony Ilalio Mbunju, lead of second-place 2024 Wege Prize winner, Senene Farm. “At the global level we want to contribute to be part of the solution that is working to make sure that we are ensuring food security – Wege Prize forces you to define what you need, who you are going to collaborate with.”

Claudine Kamanzi, lead of FruiFresh, the first-place winner, says one of the team’s most memorable Wege Prize experiences was conducting surveys in different markets to validate their idea. “Wege Prize opened us to think far,” she says, adding after making it through the first phase, the team was encouraged to keep going. “We keep saying, ‘This is our beginning. We have to keep pushing.’”

Claudine Kamanzi presenting for team FruiFresh

Wege Prize solutions are making a real-world impact. With participants from diverse academic programs at leading universities worldwide, students bring perspectives from U.S. Ivy League schools to national science and technology universities in Africa, Central American, Europe, the Far East, and more.

The 2023 winning team Banana Leather, covered on NBC News, went on to also win the $1 million Hult Prize for their Banofi Leather eco-conscious leather alternative. Others, like 2020 Wege Prize winner Hya Bioplastics and the 2021 team The Chilensis, have advanced to prestigious business incubators that lay the groundwork to implement their prize-winning ideas. Another, the 2019 finalist Rutopia with eco-sensitive tourism concepts, has been covered by top editors at Forbes and gained further funding and support.

Wege Prize is made possible through the continuing financial support of The Wege Foundation and KCAD, opening these unique opportunities for undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students around the world — and helping take strides toward a greater circular economy.

Photo credit to Dianne Carol Burdick. For information, interviews and more imagery, contact C.C. Sullivan.

Wege Speaker Series Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Posted on Categories Environment, Wege Speaker Series
RENOWNED ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATOR DR. SARAH JAQUETTE RAY TO ADDRESS THE EMOTIONAL TRAUMA OF CLIMATE CHANGE
The author of ‘A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet’ will lecture on Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Grand Rapids, Michigan – April 4, 2024 – The 27th Annual Wege Speaker Series (www.wegespeakerseries.com) returns on Wednesday, April 24, 2024 at 4pm. For the first time in 5 years, the event will again be live and hosted at the Aquinas College Performing Arts Center.
Presenting is Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray, author, professor and chair of environmental studies at California State Polytechnic, Humboldt. An environmental humanist with a BA in Religious Studies, an MA in American Studies and a PhD in Environmental Sciences, Studies and Policy, Dr. Ray draws on a eclectic range of disciplines in the service of climate justice.
“Many of us feel powerless about climate change, in part because we feel small relative to the immense scale of the crisis,” laments Dr. Ray. “This explains why such a large number of people in America care about climate change, yet so few are doing anything about it in their lives.”
Based on insights from her book, A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet (California, 2020), Dr. Ray will talk about the role of mindsets and emotions in leveraging political change for climate justice. Using neuroscience, social psychology and social movements, Ray will outline strategies for living with anxiety, grief and despair, but also—and crucially—engaging with joy, self-determination and pleasure.
“With the work we support at our local educational institutions and the challenges we face related to climate, Dr. Ray’s message couldn’t be more relevant,” says James Logan, CEO/President of The Wege Foundation. “We are looking forward to using her studies to help engage with the younger generations.”
Ray has published on emotions and the climate movement in the LA Times, Scientific American, The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Edge Effects, KCET and Zocalo Public Square. She is also a certified mindfulness facilitator through the UCLA Mindfulness Awareness Research Center.
Please register by April 17, 2024 at: aquinas.edu/wegespeaker
To attend virtually, wegespeaker2024.eventbrite.com

COLLEGIATE WINNERS ACROSS THE GLOBE HONORED FOR REAL-WORLD SOLUTIONS TO WICKED PROBLEMS, BENEFITTING THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Posted on Categories Education, Environment

2023 Wege Prize winners announced: First-place U.S. team awarded $30,000 for alternative, sustainable leather material from banana plants.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, June 5, 2023 —Three stand-out university student teams from around the world have taken winning spots in 2023 Wege Prize for their ground-breaking solutions to further a circular economy through sustainable approaches that mitigate waste and maximize productivity.

Organized by Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University (KCAD), Wege Prize challenges fiveperson student teams worldwide to collaborate in the advancement of sustainable solutions to today’s “wicked problems” in ways that support a circular economy. Each of this year’s five finalist teams is sharing in the competition’s $65,000 USD in prize money for developing solutions that address agricultural waste, environmental pollution, and wastewater.

For the past decade, Wege Prize has identified winning teams in the interdisciplinary competition, with this year’s top three groups hailing from five countries and six academic institutions. The awarded teams faced an initial pool of 50 competing team representing 37 countries as they progressed through a narrowing selection of contenders during the nine-month, multiphase competition.

Wege Prize teams are inspired to reframe traditional production and consumption methods through a multidiscipline, immersive process encompassing diverse fields of study, cultures, and institutions. The teams’ intensive research, testing, networking, and prototyping is supported and refined through direct feedback from the competition’s panel of expert judges.

“The brilliant student teams that compete in Wege Prize give me hope that humanity will solve the serious ecological problems we face by designing equitable business models that regenerate nature and add economic value,” says sustainable business expert and core judge for Wege Prize, Bill Stough.

The winners of Wege Prize 2023 are:

  • 3rd Place ($10,000): UnWastewater, a team using microbes to convert wastewater into raw materials for use in industrial and commercial products, closing the circle between the production and disposal of pharmaceutical chemicals.

  • 2nd Place ($20,000): Green Poultry Farm addresses environmental impacts of poultry farming, with the Mozambique team’s students using anaerobic digestion to create usable waste streams.

  • 1st Place ($30,000): Banana Leather whose team from Yale University’s business and environmental management programs is producing a sustainably made plant-based leather, mainly from banana crop waste.

Two other student teams, Cellucoat and Agri ThinkTank, each received $2,500 awards as finalists.

“Having a framework like the Wege Prize to kind of streamline our idea–the business model, the feasibility, the down-streaming impact, the social impact–has just been a way that we’ve had to develop this and forced us to think things that have been really helpful and instrumental in propelling this business forward,” says Jinali Mody, lead of the Banana Leather team, first-place winner of 2023 Wege Prize Award.

Wege Prize participants come from diverse academic programs at leading universities worldwide, including students from U.S. Ivy League schools to national science and technology universities in India, Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries. The teams’ solutions are making a real-world impact. The 2019 finalist Rutopia’s eco-sensitive tourism concepts, covered by top editors at Forbes, gained funding and support. Others, like 2020 Wege Prize winner Hya Bioplastics and the 2021 team The Chilensis, have advanced to prestigious business incubators that lay the groundwork to implement their prize-winning ideas.

“Each participating Wege Prize team’s innovative ideas for new ways to develop products, services, and business models help drive a regenerative, circular economy,” says Gayle DeBruyn, KCAD professor and Wege Prize organizer. “We are proud of this year’s winners and grateful for all of our student teams and dedicated judges in their pursuit and support of real-world solutions to pressing global issues.”

Wege Prize is made possible through the continuing financial support of The Wege Foundation and KCAD, opening these unique opportunities for undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students around the world — and helping take strides toward a greater circular economy.

MORE ABOUT THE WINNING TEAMS

Jinali Mody presenting for team Banana Leather in Grand Rapids, MI at the 2023 Wege Prize Awards

1ST PLACE ($30,000) –
BANANA LEATHER

Institution represented: Yale University
Disciplines represented: Business and the Environment, Industrial Ecology and Green Chemistry, Energy and Business, Energy Access, Business Administration

Producing plant leather from banana crop waste to create Ban-o-fi (for banana-fiber leather), this team’s material is comparable to animal hide in performance, but on a development pathway to being 100% biobased and biodegradable. Paired with a take-back program, their product expands the potential applications for the material and sets a new precedent for leather alternatives. While many current vegan leathers are plastics with potential environmental impacts, Banofi is vegan, cruelty-free, sustainable, and circular, “disrupting the highly polluting textile industry,” says the team. The material’s production upcycles crop waste, uses 90% less water and has 95% lower carbon emissions than animal leather.

“Our solution looks to create plant-based leather from crop waste — mainly the banana stem, which is left on fields to decay. The impact of this solution will be significant carbon emission savings, the number of livestock and exotic animals saved, the crop waste that is upcycled, waste-water pollution and heavy metal pollution avoided, resource reduction and additional income for farmers.”

Vasco Cossa presenting for team Green Poultry Farm in Grand Rapids, MI at the 2023 Wege Prize Awards

2ND PLACE ($20,000) –
GREEN POULTRY FARM

Institution Represented: Eduardo Mondlane University (Mozambique, Africa)
Disciplines Represented: Physics, Environmental Chemistry, Agronomic Engineering, Electronic Engineering

Taking on the wicked problem of environmental pollution associated with poultry farming in Mozambique, this team’s innovative system concept converts poultry waste into biogas and biofertilizers to meet energy needs within poultry production — and to grow feed to supplement farm animals’ diets.

The system’s biodigester system’s innovative use of anaerobic digestion converts poultry waste into biogas and biofertilizers. The biogas is converted into electricity and heat to meet energy needs within poultry production, and the biofertilizer is used to grow feed for the poultry. This promotes the maximum use of resources and contributes to the circular economy by keeping major pollutants in the loop.

“We identified anaerobic digestion as the approach that can address these wicked problems through waste recycling,” says the team. “It can aid in addressing both planetary boundaries and sustainable development goals.”

Team UnWastewater from left to right: Zaman Khan, Charlotte Chen, Kelvin Green, Timothy Redpath, Andrew Linz

3RD PLACE ($10,000) –
UNWASTEWATER

Institutions Represented: Princeton University, Hamilton College University of St. Andrews (Scotland, United Kingdom), University of Connecticut
Disciplines Represented: Engineering, Computer Science, Biochemistry, Engineering, Biology

With the cycle of nature as its model, the team is looking to the premise of a circular economy to create a world without waste by designing closed loop systems to maximize efficiency, prevent pollution and achieve sustainability. To realize this ambitious vision, UnWastewater aspires to revolutionize the treatment of domestic wastewater by utilizing microbial electrosynthesis (MES).

This novel method of biochemical carbon capture and utilization is used to convert domestic wastewater into organic chemical feedstocks, and ultimately, protect the environment, human health and regenerate nature.

“The very term ‘wastewater’ belies the implicit assumption that this byproduct is valueless rather than a legitimate resource,” says the team. “We aim to demonstrate that this assumption is false; that even a substance as undesirable as wastewater has the potential to be an important industrial feedstock.”

About Wege Prize
Wege Prize, a West Michigan-born concept developed by Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University’s (KCAD’s) Wege Center for Sustainable Design with the support of The Wege Foundation, is an annual competition that ignites game changing solutions for the future by inspiring college students around the world to collaborate across institutional, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries and redesign the way economies work.

About KCAD
Located in the heart of downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University (KCAD) is committed to creating lasting impact in West Michigan and beyond through collaborative partnerships, cultural innovation, and an educational model that prepares students for leadership in design, the visual arts, and art history; provides innovative, collaborative education that fosters intellectual growth and individual creativity; and promotes the ethical and civic responsibilities of artists and designers, locally and globally. For more information, please visit kcad.edu.

About The Wege Foundation
Planting seeds that develop leaders in economicology, health, education, and arts, and enhance the lives of people in West Michigan and around the world. For more information, please visit wegefoundation.com.

Follow Wege Prize on KCAD’s Wege Center for Sustainable Design page on LinkedIn, Facebook (@wegeprize), Twitter (@wegeprize), Instagram (@wegeprize), for more content, updates on participants, and more.

FINALISTS ANNOUNCED FOR WEGE PRIZE 2023, GLOBAL COMPETITION FOR CIRCULAR ECONOMY SOLUTIONS

Posted on Categories Environment

The five student teams, from nine countries and 10 academic institutions, debut innovations addressing waste, hunger, climate and injustice as they transform economy.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA April 17, 2023 —For a world reeling from hunger, climate impacts, food waste and inequity, five student teams have stepped forward with expert-reviewed and innovative solutions as part of Wege Prize 2023, with several projects focused on advances in agriculture that cut carbon emissions and sustain developing communities.

These groundbreaking ideas are nurtured by Wege Prize, organized by Kendall College of Art and Design’s Wege Center for Sustainable Design with support from the Wege Foundation. The annual competition ignites game-changing solutions for the future by inspiring college/university students around the world to collaborate across institutional, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries to redesign the way economies work. This year saw 60-plus entries from teams hailing from five continents. The five competitors, vying for $65,000 USD in total cash prizes, will present their ideas to a public audience at the annual Wege Prize Awards in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at 10:00am ET on Friday, May 19 at Kendall College of Art and Design (KCAD) and streaming live online at WegePrize.org. The diverse, multidisciplinary teams include:

  • Agri ThinkTank: Hailing from Rwanda, students from three institutions devise a tech solution to boost collection of agricultural waste for community composting.

  • Banana Leather: A way to make plant-based leather from mainly banana crop waste results from teamwork in Yale University’s business and environmental management programs.

  • Cellucoat: Students from four countries at University of Calgary innovate with a biodegradable, antimicrobial replacement for plastic packaging—and pollution.

  • Green Poultry Farm: Addressing environmental impacts of poultry farming, students from Mozambique—in four unique majors—use anaerobic digestion to create usable waste streams.

  • UnwasteWater: From four U.S. and European universities, this team tasks microbes to convert wastewater into raw materials for use in industrial and commercial products, closing the circle between the production and disposal of pharmaceutical chemicals.

BUILDING A BETTER FUTURE

As part of Wege Prize, the teams have turned their ideas, starting as informal proposals, into robust and feasible solutions. With the input of expert judges, the five finalist teams employ research, market analysis, and real-world prototyping and testing to advance their plans.

“These inspired, dedicated students are innovators and disruptors in ways that offer a glimpse of the bright and optimistic future,” adds DeBruyn. “What makes it possible? Collaborate across institutional, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries to redesign the way economies work.”

Established in 2013, Wege Prize encourages student teams to solve complex, layered problems with a diverse, collaborative approach. The competition’s rules and design brief call for developing new, tangible solutions to producing and consuming essential goods — in sustainable ways that can be applied and used after the competition ends.

LIVE EVENT: 2023 WEGE PRIZE AWARDS, FRIDAY MAY 19

This year, the Wege Prize Awards is once again a free, in-person program held at KCAD in Grand Rapids, Mich., with an accompanying free livestream that will be watched globally starting on Friday, May 19 at 10:00am ET. Watch the students defend their ideas and respond to final judge feedback along with a worldwide audience. To attend 2023 Wege Prize Awards: Game-Changing Solutions to Wicked Problems, or to view the livestream, please find event details and registration at wegeprize2023.eventbrite.com.

MORE ABOUT THE FIVE FINAL TEAMS

Based in Rwanda, Agri ThinkTank is using food waste to make eco-friendly compost and livestock feed using black soldier flies (BSF), helping farmers access products that maximize agricultural production, reduce environmental contamination, and improve living standards. Developed products are accessed and sold through an app, which identifies when waste is available to collect and connects users to the resulting compost and feed products.

Team Banana Leather is producing an alternative leather material from banana plants that is vegan, cruelty-free, sustainable and circular. Made from banana crop waste sourced from India, the process not only helps with the country’s agricultural waste issues, but provides an additional source of income for farmers. Unlike other vegan leather alternatives, Banofi (Bannana-fibre leather) aims to become a 100% biobased and biodegradable product.

Team Cellucoat is developing a compostable, biodegradable, and customizable bacterial cellulose-based plastic alternative suitable for food packaging that is also antimicrobial, prolonging produce shelf life. Cellucoat also utilizes fruit waste from grocery stores and consumer homes for their bacterial cellulose growth media, helping to mitigate produce waste issues.

Team Green Poultry Farm addresses the wicked problem of environmental pollution associated with poultry farming in Mozambique, with an innovative biodigester system that converts poultry waste into biogas and biofertilizers, through anaerobic digestion. The biogas is converted into electricity and heat to meet energy needs within poultry production and the biofertilizer is used to grow feed for the poultry, promoting maximum use of resources and contributing to the circular economy by keeping materials in the loop.

Team UnWastewater seeks to eliminate waste in the form of wastewater, circularize the pharmaceutical industry and regenerate the natural environment via carbon capture by closing the circle between the production and disposal of pharmaceutical chemicals through microbial electrosynthesis (MES). By utilizing MES, a novel method of biochemical carbon capture and utilization to synthesize chemical products, UnWasteWater aims to valorize domestic wastewater for use in organic chemical feedstocks, and ultimately protect the environment, improve human health, and regenerate nature.

Wege Speaker Series 2023

Posted on Categories Education, Environment, Wege Speaker Series

DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF ECONOMIC IMPACT AND DIVERSITY AT THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY SHALANDA H. BAKER TO PRESENT ABOUT ENERGY EQUITY AND JUSTICE

The Nation’s first-ever Deputy Director for Energy Justice will give a virtual presentation on Thursday, April 20, 2023

Grand Rapids, Michigan – March 31, 2023 – The Wege Foundation will host the 26 th annual Wege Speaker Series (www.wegespeakerseries.com) on Thursday, April 20 at 4 pm. This year’s event will be virtual.

Presenting will be the Honorable Shalanda H. Baker, Director of the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity at the U.S. Department of Energy and Secretarial Advisor on Equity. Prior to her Senate confirmation, she served as the Nation’s first-ever Deputy Director for Energy Justice.

During her illustrious career, Director Baker has conducted research on equity and the transition away from fossil fuels, studied energy policy and indigenous rights in Mexico, as well as co-founding the Initiative for Energy Justice (www.iejusa.org), an organization committed to providing technical law and policy support to communities on the front lines of climate change.

“The Department of Energy is committed to delivering a just and inclusive energy transition,” said Director Baker. “And, by prioritizing equity and place-based strategies in our work, we are modeling approaches to a clean energy transition that delivers real benefits to underserved communities—including those historically overburdened by the energy system.”

While national in its scope, Director Baker’s work has very real implications for our communities here in Grand Rapids and the West Michigan region. Director Baker’s lecture and the conversation that follows with James Logan, the newly appointed CEO/President of The Wege Foundation, is intended to energize a deeper discussion with the funding community and engage the larger West Michigan community for energy equity and justice.

“We are very much looking forward to Director Baker’s lecture and eager to learn how we may be able to implement real changes here in West Michigan,” said Mr. Logan. “We want to be ready to engage with our local communities, businesses, and organizations on the next steps for local energy justice.”

Director Baker was a Professor of Law, Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. She is the author of numerous scholarly articles as well as her recent book, Revolutionary Power: An Activists’ Guide to the Energy Transition, where she argues that the technical terrain of energy policy should be the next domain to advance civil rights.

Please register by April 19, 2023 at: wegespeaker2023.eventbrite.com

Click here to download a pdf flyer

Wege Prize 2022

Posted on Categories Education, Environment

FIVE FINALIST TEAMS FROM FOUR CONTINENTS CHOSEN
FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENT COMPETITION
— ENTRIES OFFER NEW SUSTAINABILITY SOLUTIONS FOR 2022

Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University (KCAD) announces
finalists for Wege Prize 2022, global competition for the circular economy solutions

Student teams from all over the world debut innovative approaches
to address global challenges in ways that transform the economy

Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA April 20, 2022 — Offering new ideas that can positively impact nations worldwide, five student teams are advancing as finalists for Wege Prize, the international student design competition with a $65,000 USD total purse to create solutions for “wicked problems” such as hunger, waste, pollution and climate change.

Announced by its organizer Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University (KCAD), the 2022 edition of Wege Prize will showcase the finalists’ work in a May 20 streaming presentation with global attendance, at 10:00am eastern time. The finalists selected this month are drawn from a global field representing 70 academic institutions in 29 countries with students active in almost 100 areas of academic study.

“These inspired, dedicated students are innovators and disruptors in key areas that will help us address the multitude of issues facing the world today,” says Gayle DeBruyn, a KCAD professor and leader of Wege Prize. “We are delighted to see the five finalist teams working with our diverse group of supportive judges to nurture their inventive ideas and create tangible solutions that can help accelerate our transition to a circular economy.”

The finalist teams include participants from universities in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and North America — everywhere from Canada to China and Mozambique to the United Arab Emirates. The team names and their varied innovations are:

  • AquaPro, a super-efficient aquaponics system to grow fish, vegetables and duckweed.

  • Neocycle, a plan to recycle valuable rare-earth elements from electronics waste.

  • ROBUST, a method for transforming banana fiber waste into textiles and paper bags.

  • SCUP Aquaculture, an ocean platform concept benefiting fish biodiversity and allied industries.

  • Green Promoters, a team creating an organic pesticide fertilizer to replace chemical products.

Wege Prize is a widely acclaimed and globally recognized competition serving as an agent of change for these disruptive concepts — and lofty student ambitions. It has drawn participants from the best academic programs at leading universities worldwide, from U.S. Ivy League schools to national science and technology universities in India, Ghana, China, Japan and Chile.

Guided by direct feedback from the competition’s panel of expert judges – including specialists in design, circular economy, education, and sustainability from Europe, South America and the United States — participating teams refine their solutions over three distinct phases as their scope and complexity grows more challenging. From that process, the five teams chosen this month have earned the opportunity to compete for $65,000 USD in total cash prizes, awarded annually to those whose ideas spark the brightest hope for real world implementation and success. This year’s five teams of promising future innovators and change-makers were selected from a group of 14 semifinalists.

The solutions Wege Prize teams create have gone on to make real-world impact. 2018 winner Rutopia’s eco-sensitive tourism concepts, covered by top editors at Forbes, has gained additional funding and support while blossoming into a fully-fledged business. Others like 2020 Wege Prize winner Hya Bioplastics and the 2021 team The Chilensis have advanced to prestigious business incubators that have further strengthened the groundwork to implement their prizewinning ideas.

“With climate change and so many other pressing global issues coming to a head, the world needs people who can work across boundaries to solve problems now more than ever before,” adds KCAD’s DeBruyn. “Every Wege Prize team is advancing a thoughtful and creative approach for helping transition our linear economy of taking, making and disposing, into a circular one that’s restorative by design.”

 Wege Prize was established in 2013 to solve complex, layered problems and to encourage students in higher education to take a diverse, collaborative approach in developing new, tangible solutions to produce and consume essential goods in sustainable ways that are applied and used after the competition’s conclusion.

This year, a free livestream of the finalist teams, the 2022 Wege Prize Awards will be held on May 20, 2022, when the top groups will present and defend their bold ideas in front of expert judges and a global online audience. Event details and registration can be found at https://2022wegeprizeawards.eventbrite.com.

 

Click here to read about the finalists