Welcome to the 2022 Student Designathon, a month-long collaborative student design challenge hosted by Engineers Without Borders UK in partnership with AzuKo. This extra-curricular design challenge will provide multidisciplinary students with the opportunity to collaborate and develop solutions for real-world problems. 

Engineering changes the way we live and has both a positive and negative impact on the world. Despite the evidence, a narrow view of what engineering is and what it should be continues to persist throughout the industry. Producing inclusive outcomes that meet the needs of society requires the acknowledgement of engineering’s shortcomings, and radical thinking about how it can ensure a more equitable and sustainable future.

Your team must pitch an idea for how to make the engineering sector more globally responsible. 

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The sky’s the limit – we want you to get creative. As long as you consider the four key principles of globally responsible engineering, the rest is up to you. You could design a campaign, digital platform, ethical toolkit or even a new way to educate the next generation of engineers. To help you get started, we have suggested some areas of interest below – you are of course free to choose other areas should you wish. 

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• Reshaping Practice

• Reshaping Entrepreneurship

• Reshaping with Society

• Reshaping Education

Tuesday 1 February

Read the Participant Brief and Guidance document to build upon your understanding of the challenge and guide your design process. 

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Friday 11 February

Enter the workspace below to submit a concept note (200 - 300 words) outlining your team's idea. This will provide you with an opportunity to receive feedback from the Designathon mentors and you'll get your first look at the ideas being developed by other teams.

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​Monday 21 February

Submit your final idea with a 3-minute video, a 500 word description, and any supporting documentation (diagrams, photos, calculations, data etc.) on Crowdsolve.

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The video presentation can be any format you choose (filmed presentation of team members, animation, narrated slideshow etc.) and should be embedded into your post as a YouTube/Vimeo video.

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Tuesday 22 - Sunday 27 February

Submissions will be reviewed by a panel of professional judges.

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Monday 28 February

The teams that have most effectively considered the principles of globally responsible engineering will be announced as the winners of the challenge

The People's Prize is a public vote, awarding the team that has most effectively considered the principles of globally responsible engineering in their design.

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Be sure to explore the design ideas in the workspace, which you can access below, and then cast your vote. Voting closes at midnight on Sunday 27 February. 

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The team that receives the highest number of votes will win the People’s Prize.

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Vote here

By taking part in the designathon, teams agree to share their solutions under an open-source Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0. Teams shall own the Intellectual Property of their work, however, they will agree to provide others (including Engineers Without Borders UK and Azuko) permission to share and build upon their ideas for a wider benefit, and be credited accordingly.

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If you have any queries about this, please get in contact at community@ewb-uk.org