FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, visit: http://challenge.bfi.org

Contact: Matt Barron, Tel: 718.290.9283, Email: challenge (at) bfi (dot) org

NOVEMBER 12th, 2007, NEW YORK CITY — The Buckminster Fuller Challenge deadline for entries passed at midnight October 30th, with a remarkable 250 submissions received.

Launched in July, The Buckminster Fuller Challenge is an international design science competition which will award a prize of $100,000 to a single winning solution that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems in the shortest possible time while enhancing the Earth’s ecological integrity.

Two hundred and fifty individuals and/or teams answered the unique call for entries with solutions that span the spectrum from a carbon-neutral emergency shelter system to a DIY peanut-hulling machine designed for use in developing rural economies.

Entries have been received from over 35 countries including Ghana, Malaysia, Peru, Bangladesh, China, Turkey, and Iceland. Teams of students from a number of prominent universities, including Stanford University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the University of Toronto have also entered.

A panel of internationally renowned jurors will select the winner of the first Buckminster Fuller Challenge. The prize will be conferred at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City in the final week of June, 2008, to coincide with the museum’s retrospective exhibition on the life and work of R. Buckminster Fuller.

“The review process will begin immediately”, says BFI Executive Director, Elizabeth Thompson, “A team of three distinguished advisors, each of whom have a deep knowledge of Fuller’s work, and the approach to problem-solving he termed design science, will review submissions for compliance with the entry criteria and select a pool of no more than 50 entries of outstanding quality to send to the jury. The diversity, creativity and quality of entries is fantastic - it is an amazing tribute to Bucky’s influence and inspiration.”

Inspired by the life and work of visionary 20th Century futurist and global thinker, R. Buckminster Fuller, The Buckminster Fuller Challenge seeks solutions that epitomize what Fuller called the trimtab principle. The winning solution will be:

Comprehensive - a clear demonstration of holistic systems thinking; Anticipatory - projectively tracking critical trends and needs; identifying and assessing long term consequences of proposed solutions; Ecologically responsible - reflective and supportive of nature’s underlying processes, patterns and principles; Verifiable - able to withstand rigorous empirical testing; Replicable - capable of being readily undertaken by others and Achievable - likely to be implemented successfully and broadly adopted.


For more information, visit http://challenge.bfi.org