BE OPEN and SBID Announce Designed for Business Overall and Category Winners at the House of Commons

LONDON, November 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

BE OPEN think tank and the Society of British & International Design (SBID) announce the winners of Designed for Business, the new national competition that showcases emerging talent, promotes equal opportunities and nurtures relationships between students and the working world.

Finalists, along with key names from the design business community and academia, gathered at the House of Commons for the prize-giving ceremony. The entries were judged by an esteemed panel from across the creative industries including Sebastian Conran Associates, Amazon UK, Christie's Education, John Lewis, Amara, HG Designworks and VitrA, as well as creative educators from a number of the UK's leading universities.

Katarina Spenerova, University of Dundee, was announced as the overall winner of Designed for Business competition, winning the £30,000 prize. Katrina's project PETAL - a modular building system that allows communities to grow in an organic way, was chosen due to its originality in providing an inventive solution to the problem of housing in today's society.

In addition, the category winners across the five disciplines, receiving £1,000 were announced.

Fashion category winner - Anna Cuinu, Heriot-Watt University Cuinu's entry aims to create accessible clothing for the two million plus people living with sight loss in the UK. The collection is a contemporary, transseasonal, capsule knitwear collection with easy fastenings that includes the integration of wooden Feelipa buttons as a tactile marker to communicate the garment's colour.

Interior Design category winner - Stephen Tozer, University Arts Falmouth. Tozer designed The Gas House to provide support for 16-20 year olds who are, or have been, in the social care system and require guidance to become successfully independent. The Gas House aims to create a sense of 'belonging' for inhabitants by engaging members of the local community to aid young people through education, work, living and support.

Interior Decoration category winner - Catherine Sinclair, Glasgow School of Art. Sinclair designed a sustainable collection of knitted textiles for interiors that have a sense of fluidity and surprise, inspired by the idea of building shelter.

Product Design category winner - Stefan Guiton, University of the West of England. Guiton designed Kulinda, a simple, low cost pneumonia diagnosis device. Kulinda counts a child's breaths per minute with a stretch sensor and a light indicates if pneumonia is present, determined by an algorithm in a microchip.

Art & Design category winner - Joshua Redican, Coventry University. Redican's project explores the cultural issue of social media addiction due to instant gratification and reveals how it is affecting our society.

SBID founder, Dr Vanessa Brady OBE, says "We were delighted to receive such a high volume of impressive entries, all of which aim to change traditional ways of thinking through design with innovation and social conscience at their heart. We believe that the competition will provide a lifechanging opportunity for the winning student and hope to encourage current students to develop a business mind throughout their creative education, in order to become the pioneers of the future."

BE OPEN founder Elena Baturina comments, "I am thoroughly impressed by the calibre of entries and the thinking behind each of our finalists work. The lens of the future generation looks bright and we can see how well they have considered their brief to find solutions that are not only pleasing to the eye, but also take on board values such as sustainability and the environment. BE OPEN is delighted to be involved in celebrating the next generation of young, creative designers and support them as they develop their careers."