The 5th edition of Global Grad Show received applications from over 200 universities, double the number of 2018
For the second year, Global Grad Show is held in partnership with Investment Corporation of Dubai
The most diverse edition to-date features 100+ universities, including established names such as The University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University and Goldsmiths, alongside new entrants from Philippines, Colombia and Kuwait
New curator announced as Eleanor Watson, whose previous curatorial work focuses on drawing visibility to the impact of design at the London Design Museum
Curatorial themes will explore the spheres where innovation can create a positive impact, notably The Human; The Home; The Community; The City; The Planet
Expanded programme includes the Innovating for Social Impact conference, as well as an Entrepreneurship Programme for participating students

Global Grad Show, the worlds biggest and most different gathering of universities, will come back to Dubai from 12-16 November indeed in partnership with Investment Corporation of Dubai. Free and open to the public during Dubai Design Week, Global Grad Show is the only exhibition of its kind, exhibiting graduate projects from over 100 universities from 43 countries, in the fields of design, science, technology and engineering.

In an extended presentation space, this years edition will house the largest gathering of universities to-date, following a record number of applications. Global Grad Show will feature 150 projects from a scope of backgrounds, displaying innovations from universities in developing markets, including Chile, Uganda, Egypt, Pakistan and Thailand, next to the work of students from global institutions such as Harvard, Stanford and Imperial College. From the UAE, driving provincial institutions such as Zayed University and NYU Abu Dhabi will present advanced solutions for issues ranging from maturing populaces to food security.

HE Mohammed I. Al Shaibani, Executive Director and CEO of Investment Corporation of Dubai remarked: For the past year, the Investment Corporation of Dubai has upheld Global Grad Show in developing the reach, diversity and latitude of its programme. More young innovators across the world have now the chance to grandstand and create solutions for the society and environment and he added the restored association is a ratification of Dubais commitment to build a better and sustainable future for all, utilizing the citys position as a worldwide innovation and entrepreneurship hub.

Global Grad Show will present a conference for industry experts and scholastics, promoting knowledge exchange between institutions, titled the Innovating for Social Impact on Monday, 11 November. The conference will explore how universities can be catalysts for sustainable development across the world. Drawing from the experience of professors, graduates, entrepreneurs and stakeholders, it will reveal insight on the learnings from initiatives that use sustainable innovation in the fields of technology, architecture and design. The conference will be curated by Community Jameel.

A new initiative in 2019 is an Entrepreneurship Programme, which supports graduate projects through their following steps, up to market launch. The first phase of the programme is an online training, which covers the fundamentals of business-thinking and setting up a social startup. Next, up to 20 projects will be selected to attend a boot camp in Dubai, to fine-tune their startup concepts and pitching skills.

In the final stage, participants will be introduced to accelerators and UAE-based stakeholders from the entrepreneurship field, to explore collaboration opportunities. The objective of the programme is to offer Global Grad Show extends the chance to be additionally created while attracting young innovation talent around the world to Dubais entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Highlight projects

The projects for Global Grad Show are chosen dependent on how they react to a range of criteria, including how they react to the four tenets of the exhibition; Innovation, Impact, Equality and Exchange. The students will be in Dubai throughout the week and will bring prototypes, films and original research material for visitors to connect with and collaborate with.
Eleanor Watson, Curator of the Global Grad Show 2019 said Global Grad Show is a coming together of the brightest young minds in the design industry, showcasing projects from over 100 schools this year. The curatorial approach of this year aims to show the connections between different spheres of human existence; as visitors walk through the exhibition, they will experience projects related to the human first, moving on to the home and community and finally the city, and planet. Our hope is that it will inspire others to think critically about how they live, while inspiring all of us to act consciously.

Some of the identified themes within the system of spheres, are health, wealth & disparity, gender & equality, sustainability, education and technology. Included below are comments from the curator, Eleanor Watson.

Healthcare: Worldwide access to healthcare is a significant theme in this years edition of Global Grad Show, as young designers find innovative ways of delivering care and treatment in the most challenging situations. Projects under this tenet present potential exciting advancements in the field

Excelscope 2.0 Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands: A savvy instrument for diagnosing Malaria in rural sub Saharan Africa, intended to reduce workload and increase accuracy, diminishing the expense of diagnosis.
Insulata Nottingham Trent University, UK: A thermally regulating cocoon, intended for premature babies born in low-income areas or developing countries.
Swiv University of Pennsylvania, USA: A toothbrush for children with cognitive disabilities who struggle with the tasks of daily living, allowing them to clean their teeth with a single physical motion.
Wealth & disparity: With wealth disparity remaining a pressing issue throughout the world, graduates are developing approaches to guarantee that underserved communities are acknowledged and empowered, making sure nobody is left behind in the age of automation
Epitent Makerere University, Uganda: Inspired by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, a portable habitation solution for humanitarian emergencies was created.
Hubvance Politecnico Di Torino and College des Ingenieurs, Italy: An all-in-one container for communities with low resources, that produces energy from solar panels, and panels that condense humidity for air into water.
Zambeel University of Karachi, Pakistan: A two way carry bag that provides relief for the workers form rural areas who migrate to the city and send all of their income home, enabling them to securely carry their possessions and sleep at night.

Gender & equality: A large number of the projects in this area are intended to improve womens safety, wellbeing and health. Such projects are female-led, helping us all to understand the intricacies of design.
CAMSY Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland: Women have a 50% higher chance of getting a false heart diagnosis because their symptoms are different from those of men. CAMSY is a wearable monitoring system designed to constantly check and register of irregularities to the cardiac values of the patient.
Hale The American University in Cairo, Egypt: Hospital gowns with self-aid and sensor features to aid a less intrusive form of health monitoring.
Masectomy Caregiver Design Academy, The Netherlands: Adaptive and protective knitwear for women who have experienced a mastectomy, which places a protective shell around mastectomy scars where space and comfort is needed.
Sustainability: As the climate crisis becomes an unavoidable part of our daily lives, designers are facing the difficult task of addressing issues around global systems of production and consumption. Young people are attempting to discover approaches to utilize our assets in an inventive manner

Blue Gas UCL Berlett School of Architecture, UK: A grass roots solution for an affordable transition to production, storage and clean cooking using biogas and locally sourced organic materials that connect in an easily replicable and constructible system.
Organico University of the Arts Berlin, Germany: A biodegradable lightweight compressed material intended for furniture making, which can be manufactured with little ecological footprint.
Impacto - Collge des Ingnieurs, Italy: An online platform that urges individuals to live more sustainably by using a reliable algorithm that calculates your positive environmental impact by reducing plastic consumption in your life.
Education: With a keen understanding that knowledge offers both opportunity and agency, young designers are developing tools to promote better education for all.

Class is over Hunan University, China: An educational board game designed to teach children about basic health and safety to avoid accidental injuries.
Designing Tactile Schematics New York University, USA: A set of design standards developed to make electronics and DIY projects more accessible for the visually impaired.
Water Scale - Louis Bruno Bindernagel, University of the Arts Berlin, Germany: A digital scale displays the amount of water used in the production of our groceries thereby enabling us to make our own fact-based decisions on consumption.
Technology: As technology continues to develop at its own dizzying pace, graduates are leading conversations around the development and use of these powerful new tools. These graduate projects raise questions around how the development of new technologies will play out in the future and how they can bring a positive change.

Roblox UCL - Bartlett school of Architecture, UK: Modular construction system which allows the creation and reconfiguration of a large variation of structures of multiple scales.
Jarvis - University of Pennsylvania, USA: A mixed reality headset, enabling doctors to accurately measure the brains response to distractions or activities when conducting cognitive tests for severe head trauma, pharmaceutical efficacy and ADHD.
Mi Data Royal College of Art and Imperial College London, UK: A gateway for users to view the type of raw data they are sharing as well as their derived data psychographics by augmenting the experience in personal data transparency.
Ro-Biotics Royal College of Art and Imperial College London: A microscopic robot created from 4D printed materials to be ingested in the spot of an antibiotic, which captures infections in the blood stream.