Design ākonga to fore in international contest

Otago Polytechnic School of Design ākonga have shone in an international competition, Map the System.

Jungmee (Michelle) Jung (Communication Design) and Will Davenport (Product Design) participated in the Humber College, Toronto, round of Map the System, an Oxford University-based global system thinking competition that aims to stimulate new ways of addressing social and environmental change.

Michelle and Will won the Global Polytechnic Alliance prize for their project, which explored the interconnected issues surrounding New Zealand’s fresh food price inflation. The duo were joined by Pranjili Mehta and Oubah Omar, of Humber College.

Utilising “system thinking”, the team delved into a range of issues to visualise elements of complex economic systems that drive the current inflation of food prices.

Angus Lewry, Otago Polytechnic Product Design Lecturer, also supervised a team comprising students from Humber College, Canada and Via University, Denmark.

His team won the Via University division of the Map the System Competition with their research into night-time light pollution and its effect on natural life, such as the reproduction system of local birds.

“Despite the early weekly classes at 7am, we were impressed with the commitment our students and staff showed to the projects and are thrilled to see a fruitful end to this annual event,” says Machiko Niimi, Head of Product Design, Otago Polytechnic.

“The Otago Polytechnic students showed excellent ability to critically research and analyse the complex landscape of food inflation we are experiencing today.

“Winning a place against a huge group of ambitious post-graduate students from Canada and Denmark is something to be very proud of.

“Our design students’ ability to turn in-depth research into visual infographics was a really valuable skill they brought to the team.”