Update: Designing’s Water Future Finalists

ASPEN — AIGA, the professional association for design, gathered some of the most innovative students in design last week to review and develop projects that were finalists in the Aspen Challenge: Designing Water’s Future.

In association with INDEX: and Circle of Blue, the international contest challenged cross-disciplinary student teams to develop design solutions that explore new ways of understanding and responding to the global water crisis.

Read more about the challenge in Fast Company.

More than 450 students from 115 universities in 27 countries participated, submitting entries that ranged from innovative devices that control water flow in showers to emergency water purifiers to new ways to think and talk about water. The Aspen Challenge jury convened in New York in February and selected seven finalist projects and 11 honorable mentions. The next round of workshops for the winning students takes place in August in Copenhagen.

The Aspen Design Challenge is a joint project developed by AIGA and INDEX:, a global nonprofit design network, to engage the millennial generation in solving global issues. The challenge is part of the Aspen Design Summit, an international conference organized for leaders from business, the public and nonprofit organizations. The initiative grew out of a session presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland by Brian Collins, chairman of Collins, and J. Carl Ganter, co-founder of Circle of Blue.

Full Aspen coverage coming soon.