The Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar (VCUQatar), which is supported and funded by the Qatar Foundation, has launched the 2010 edition of its annual design competition for secondary school students.

The competition invites senior secondary school students from all over the world to present their ideas to reduce garbage and design alternatives to simply throwing things away.

“Fourteen billion pounds of trash is dumped into oceans annually around the world and this waste represents a huge economic burden on all the countries and the environment,” said Dima Salameh, senior recruitment officer and financial aid liaison at VCUQatar.

“This year’s competition is an exciting opportunity for students to better understand and think of ways to reduce garbage and re-purpose some of what we throw away while making beautiful and useful objects.”

Based on this year’s theme ‘Everything is Useful’, students the world over will get a chance to express their creative solutions to re-use more of what we throw away thereby helping create a smarter, safer and more sustainable environment.

Along with the prospect for 40 students to win cash prizes and two qualified students can apply for and earn the full four-year Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned Scholarship for Creativity to study design or art at VCUQatar.

Moamer Qazafi, director of marketing and public relations at VCUQatar, said: “Design is about inspiring other people with wonderful ideas. We hope students give the crisis the world is facing today a fresh perspective as they come up with design solutions that will help improve the environment.

“This design competition is aimed at the innovators of the future who can think of original and creative ways in which discarded items could become useful products so nothing is wasted.”

The competition offers students eight first prizes of $700, ten second prizes of $500 and 22 third prizes of $300.

All the winners can compete for a chance for a full four-year Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned Scholarship for Creativity to attend VCUQatar. The scholarship includes, tuition, housing and academic expenses for students attending VCUQatar.

The competition is open to all students who are in their senior year of high school who will graduate in May/June of the calendar year 2010 and be ready to enter university in the August of the same year.

The deadline to submit the entry online is January 10, 2010, said a statement. – TradeArabia News Service