Life-saving device takes top award at New Designers

7 July 2011

BU student Steve Green - winner of the Virgin Atlantic Prize for Product Design at New Designers

Air pollution extraction unit could save thousands of lives in the developing world.

A life-saving project designed to reduce the deaths caused by harmful household pollution in the developing world has helped Bournemouth University student Steve Green win a major prize at this year’s New Designers exhibition in London.

Steve won the Virgin Atlantic Prize for Product Design at New Designers – considered the largest graduate design showcase in Europe. In addition to a pair of tickets to travel ‘anywhere in the world’, the 22-year-old from Steventon, near Abingdon in Oxfordshire will also spend a two-week placement with Virgin Atlantic.

“I’m very excited about winning this amazing prize; it was really unexpected!” said Steve who has just completed his degree in Product Design at BU.

Steve’s Indoor Air Pollution Extraction Unit, which can be wind or solar powered, has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives around the world in places where people depend upon biomass fuels like wood to heat their indoor stoves for cooking.

“Up to half of the world’s population – around 3 billion people – still relies on biomass fires for cooking and boiling drinking water,” said Steve. “The World Health Organisation estimates that air pollution from using these stoves indoors causes between 1.6 and 2 million deaths a year. My project is an affordable, sustainably powered extraction unit that removes this pollution without requiring user interaction once installed which I’m hoping will one day reduce or even eliminate these needless deaths around the world.”

Steve has already attracted commercial interest in his project during New Designers and at BU’s recent Festival of Design and Innovation, where he was also named Best Student for Product Design.

Based at the capital’s Business Design Centre, New Designers features the work, energy and talent of some 3,500 young designers who come face-to-face with over 30,000 visitors including businesses looking for graduates to employ.