‘Simplification’ is the theme for the fourth Audi Innovation Award for the Middle East and submissions are now open for designers in the Middle East to submit their ideas and concepts.

Led by Audi Middle East in partnership with Dubai Design Week, the competition aims to empower regional designers while archiving intellectual progress, to create a new generation of change-makers in the region.

Rooted in the value of personal freedom, this year’s theme ‘Simplification’ is defined as to design for efficiency. By proposing design solutions to impact the way an object is made, used, moved, or stored, the simplest products can enhance our quality of life by offering the luxury of more time.

Intuitive designers in the Middle East are invited to propose everyday products that are simpler to use, to transport, that use less material or energy to be manufactured, or are easier to operate or store. The winner will be in line for a once in a lifetime opportunity of mentoring, publicity and up to $25,000 investment in the winning innovation, as well as a trip to visit the Audi headquarters in Ingolstadt, Germany, to experience the automotive design journey at the company’s headquarters. Three shortlisted candidates will be given $2,500 to present their concepts at Dubai Design Week 2019.

Carsten Bender, Brand Director of Audi Middle East, commented; “The Audi Innovation Award has grown in popularity and stature since its launch in 2016 and we have been fascinated to see the progress of our first three winners in the region. The Audi brand represents progressiveness and stylish design so this award perfectly resonates with our passion to inspire a new generation of designers for the future here in the Middle East.”

In 2016, the first winning concept of the Audi Innovation Award was from Jordanian designer Sahar Madanat, who demonstrated the theme ‘Alternative’ by interpreting a seemingly resolved everyday object and redefined it for a new use, in form of a multi-function tableware set enabling one-handed users to cut food and navigate between courses while concealing the limitations imposed by their disability. Jamal Alsharkas from Dubai was the winner of the 2017 award, for his project ‘EZ Move’, where he interpreted the theme of ‘Autonomy’ into a self-sustaining, addressing a solution for those with mobility challenges, the elderly and the visually impaired by offering freedom of movement, freedom of choice and the dignity of being in control of one’s own destination. The 2018 theme, ‘Connections’, had a focus on bringing things together, or how things relate to one another’; Lebanese Elias Soueidi’ winning project, ‘Ruin to Reality’, allows users access to virtual 3d models of ruined historical buildings and landmarks.

Submissions are now open via https://audiinnovationaward.com/

The deadline for designs to be submitted is 20 May 2019 and the winner will be announced at Dubai Design Week in November 2019.