[deadline: 12/04/2013]
The Buckminster Fuller Challenge is an annual international design Challenge awarding $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems. Named “Socially-Responsible Design’s Highest Award” by Metropolis Magazine, it attracts bold, visionary, tangible initiatives focused on a well-defined need of critical importance. Winning solutions are regionally specific yet globally applicable and present a truly comprehensive, anticipatory, integrated approach to solving the world’s complex problems. Winning the Buckminster Fuller Challenge requires more than inserting a great stand-alone innovation into a complex ‘problem space’. We are looking for holistic strategies that demonstrate a clear grasp of ‘the big picture’, focused on a well-defined need of critical importance. If for example, your solution emphasizes a new design, material, process, service, tool, technology, or any combination, it is essential that it be part of an integrated strategy that incorporates key social, environmental, and economic factors. We are seeking visions that put forth what Fuller called a preferred state model – one that aims to design a set of initial conditions from inception in order to create over time, the most desirable, sustainable outcome. We are seeking solutions that embody what Fuller referred to as the trimtab principle – demonstrating that a relatively small initiative inserted into a system at the right time and place can achieve maximum leverage for advantageous change. Entries can span the spectrum of scale - from macrostrategies restoring and maintaining ecosystems necessary for life on earth to thrive, to community-based ventures that have global relevance. Entries can also span the spectrum of development stage - from well formulated concept, to proof-of-concept, to proven track record. Competence and commitment of the team behind the idea is more important. Info: challenge.bfi.org