The Index Project and the Faculty of Design of the Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD) are launching the second edition of Diseño Responde, Index + UDD Latin American Challenge.

This year, we're activating youth in the Latin American region to design sustainable solutions that help improve quality of life — for people and planet.

The theme of sustainable design is defined as designs that satisfy the needs of the present without compromising the ability to meet the needs of future generations. Therefore, students and graduates, from various disciplines, will create design solutions with the intent of creating a more conscious society.

Why sustainable design?
The world can't advance without sustainability at the heart of every initiative, and the figures prove it. In 2021, four of the key indicators used by the UN to measure the progress of climate change registered record levels. This includes the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the rise in sea levels, the heat accumulated in the oceans and the acidification of our seas.

Additionally, the global temperature of the Earth is getting higher. The average temperature has increased by 1.2 degrees celsius since the end of the 19th century, according to the State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2020 report, by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The same report anticipates that Latin America will be one of the continents most affected by climate-related events. Latin America has also experienced the worst droughts in 50 years in the southern Amazon and, in 2020, broke the record for hurricanes and floods in Central America. According to UN figures, these events have claimed more than 312,000 lives in Latin America and the Caribbean and affected more than 277 million people between 1998 and 2020.

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Go to the competition page (Spanish).