Montreal (Canada), 17 October 2024 — As part of its ongoing mandate to support the next generation of designers globally, World Design Organization (WDO)® has recently launched a three-week virtual design sprint providing post-secondary design students with interdisciplinary research and strategy learning opportunities.

Under the banner of the theme Heritage in Motion: Defining the Future by Design, the pitch-style challenge will run from 30 September 2024 to 21 October 2024 and feature participation from WDO’s Young Designers Circle, as well as six WDO Member academic institutions from around the world, including:

Collaborating online across multiple continents and time zones, undergraduate and graduate students from these schools will work in teams to propose opportunities for innovation related to one of seven sub-themes connected to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) — from future food systems to technological craftsmanship and environmental conservation.

Members of WDO’s Young Designers Circle will join a network of faculty and design professionals to mentor teams as subject matter experts throughout the challenge, and review the final proposals presented at the end of the three-week period.

Evaluation criteria will be based on methods used to map the problem space, how the solutions landscape is defined, and the strategic response used to address the problem space.

Winner announcements will take place on 21 October 2024.

As the latest in a series of WDO Member-led design sprints, this initiative not only reflects WDO’s ongoing mandate of addressing pressing global issues through design, but also empowers the next generation of designers to think speculatively about the social, ethical, and technological implications of new innovations. To learn more about this design sprint, please visit wdo.org/programmes/special-projects/heritage-in-motion-design-sprint.

For more information, please contact Dorothée Bolade, WDO Community Engagement Officer at dorothee@wdo.org.

About World Design Organization

World Design Organization (WDO)® is an international non-governmental organization and the international voice for industrial design. WDO advocates for Design for a Better World, promoting and sharing knowledge of industrial design-driven innovation that enhances the economic, social, cultural, and environmental quality of life. Today, WDO services over 200 member organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of industrial designers around the world. wdo.org