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The MFA in Products of Design program at SVA has launched a unique idea in anticipation of their annual Open House and Info Session, coming up next month on Friday, November 11th. This year they're introducing an “Open House Design Challenge”—a chance to help people interested in attending the event, but who may not be able to afford the travel expense. 

The way it works is easy: Participants choose a design challenge from the following:

• How would you design a product that tells time without using numbers?
• If Airbnb and Johnson & Johnson launched a new initiative together, what would it be?
• Invent one way to reduce implicit bias in the context of a job interview
• How can a fast food restaurant reduce the amount of garbage its customers create?
• Sketch an app that would help teenagers counter bullying

They then propose a design solution by submitting one image along with a one-paragraph text description.

The top 5 winning entrants receive expert portfolio reviews from faculty and experts, and the overall winner will receipt travel reimbursement up to $750 to come to the department's open house in New York City! 

Chair of the department Allan Chochinov explains, "We wanted to create a fun and modest way to help more people make it to our Open House event—it's just such an ideal opportunity to see the department, meet students and faculty...really get a visceral sense of where the education takes place. But we also know that travel can be expensive." He adds, "We're excited to see what people come up with. This isn't solely a skills challenge however; what we're looking for are ingenious design approaches to interesting problems—some social, some interactive, some industrial, some business design. We tried to keep the themes multi-disciplinary, since that is what and how we teach in the PoD Masters program." 

The deadline for submitting your idea is Friday, October 21st. Find all the details at the SVA site.