The Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Terra Carta Design Lab, in partnership with the Royal College of Art (RCA) have announced the two winning projects from the RCA: BlueNose, developing solutions to improve the aerodynamics of ships & Pyri, a low-cost wildfire detection system.
The Terra Carta Design Lab is a student-led, global competition to design high-impact solutions to the climate and biodiversity crisis. The competition was judged by Sir Jony Ive and Jennifer Jordan-Saifi, Sustainable Markets Initiative CEO, who selected the two winners from ten shortlisted finalists from the RCA.
Winning projects are awarded a prize of £100,000 enabling them to be scaled and taken to market. Winners from the RCA are:
Blue Nose
BlueNose is developing a solution designed to reduce fuel consumption of containerships by up to 5% through the use of aerodynamic improvements retrofitted on board. The shape of these aerodynamic structures are found through the use of iterative processing algorithms.
The project was founded by Léon Grillet (MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering, 2022) and Joë Sangar.
‘We are both honoured and thrilled to have been chosen as one the global winners of the Terra Carta Design Lab. This is a unique opportunity to bring some attention to the issue we are addressing and to bolster the development of BlueNose. The support we garner will accelerate our path to the deployment of our solutions on board of ships across the seas and help realise our full impact.’
Léon Grillet and Joë Sangar, Co-founders of BlueNose
Pyri
According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) the number of wildfires could increase by up to 50% by the end of this century. Pyri presents an innovative solution to managing the ongoing increase in wildfires that are destroying ecosystems, harming human health and releasing emissions that exacerbate climate change, in a compounding cycle. It features a low-cost wildfire detection system designed with remote and vulnerable communities in mind.
The team includes Richard Alexandre, Richard ‘Blake’ Goodwyn, Karina Gunadi and Tanghao Yu (all MA/Msc Innovation Design Engineering, 2024). Earlier this year, Pyri also won the UK National James Dyson Award, and was named as one of the award’s top 20 international projects.
‘Winning the Terra Carta Design Lab award is a profound affirmation of Pyri’s vision to protect nature from worsening wildfires. This support empowers us to accelerate innovation, deepen our impact, and bring our technology closer to the communities that need it most.’
Richard Alexandre, Richard ‘Blake’ Goodwyn, Karina Gunadi and Tanghao Yu, Co-founders of Pyri
Both projects are currently supported by InnovationRCA, the Royal College of Art’s centre for entrepreneurship and commercialisation, providing incubation, IP and business support.
‘It is an honour and delight to have two projects from the Royal College of Art win this year’s Terra Carta
Professor Christoph Lindner, President and Vice-Chancellor of the Royal College of Art
Design Lab. Both of the winning projects embody the competition’s ambitions to respond to the climate and biodiversity crisis with innovative, multidisciplinary and impactful solutions that can create real change in people’s lives globally. I am so excited to see these projects flourish and commend the Sustainable Markets Initiative for another highly successful year coordinating the global Terra Carta Design Lab.’
This year’s Design Lab took its search to a global stage, partnering with the RCA and three other design universities – Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation (UAE); National Institute of Design Ahmedabad (India); and Rhode Island School of Design (USA) – inviting current students and recent alumni to develop high-impact solutions to the climate and biodiversity crisis. A range of applications from each of these prestigious global design universities was evaluated by experts from within each institution before eight global winners were selected.
The Terra Carta Design Lab was launched by His Majesty King Charles III, then HRH The Prince of Wales, and former Apple Chief Design Officer Sir Jony Ive in 2021 in partnership with the Royal College of Art.
‘At the Sustainable Markets Initiative, we always want to drive ambitious and practical action to help the
Jennifer Jordan-Saifi, CEO of the Sustainable Markets Initiative
private sector accelerate its progress towards a sustainable future. The Terra Carta Design Lab competition truly exemplifies the possibilities of tackling the climate and biodiversity crisis when connecting design, engineering, innovation, technology and art, to develop impactful and commercially viable solutions. I want to congratulate the winners of the competition for their innovative and commercially-minded designs. Their optimistic, multi-disciplinary and multi-generational approaches to a variety of climate- and biodiversity-focused issues are truly inspiring and demonstrate the power of collective ideas and co-creation in transitioning to a sustainable future.’
‘We are delighted with the momentum and impact of the Terra Carta Design Lab. The teams created
innovative and practical solutions describing their thinking and design proposals with a compelling clarity.This collective body of work is made more powerful and relevant with the perspectives of students from
Sir Jony Ive, Chancellor of the Royal College of Art and Terra Carta Design Lab Global Judge
India, Dubai and the US, as well as the UK, developing locally relevant ideas and approaches.’
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