Designing for Affordability

Deadline: 2019-12-06
Award: $17,000
Open to: University or college students*

The rising level of inequity in societies around the world is one of the key challenges of this century. In 2015, the World Economic Forum reported that for the first time in recent history, the richest 1% of individuals held more global wealth than the remaining 99% combined. While design and technology are increasingly being deployed to help individuals reach old age mentally sharp, physically fit, and financially secure; innovations far too often only reach people at the upper levels of socioeconomic status.

The 2020 Stanford Center on Longevity (SCL) Design Challenge will target this issue by asking young designers around the world to identify and design for opportunities to significantly reduce the cost of innovations that help people at all ages do the things needed to increase their odds of a long and healthy life. The Challenge will be informed by the SCL’s New Map of Life project, which has identified areas for improvement in the quest for helping people live healthy and productive 100-year lives. Designers will be asked to identify and address an opportunity and propose a low-cost solution.