Young engineers and designers across New Zealand are being invited to submit their ideas for the 2026 James Dyson Award, a global design engineering competition that supports inventions aimed at solving real-world problems.
Now open for submissions across 28 countries and regions, the competition encourages current and recent design and engineering students to develop practical solutions to everyday frustrations and global challenges. Since its launch, the award has supported more than 400 inventions and helped many young innovators bring their ideas closer to commercial reality.
Sir James Dyson, founder of Dyson, says the award was created to encourage young problem-solvers to focus on practical innovation.
“I established the James Dyson Award to encourage young ‘doers’ in life who are focused on solving the problems they see in the world, not grandstanding about them,” Dyson says. “It has been inspiring to see so many brilliant ideas from young design engineers, many of whom have gone on to build businesses and take their problem-solving ideas to people and markets all over the world.”
Entries are first judged at a national level by panels of design and engineering experts, including Dyson engineers. National winners receive $11,610 and advance to the international stage, where global winners selected by Dyson receive $69,610 and additional exposure to help accelerate their ideas.
New Zealand has already produced successful entries in recent years. In 2025 the national prize went to Lensare, a pair of smart glasses developed by University of Canterbury product design engineering student Mark Campbell. The glasses detect harmful light patterns and instantly darken using LCD lenses, offering protection for people with photosensitive epilepsy or photophobia.
Campbell says the project was inspired by the challenges faced by people with light-triggered seizures and migraines.
“Winning the James Dyson Award national prize is incredibly exciting, not just for the recognition, but for the opportunity it gives me to take Lensare to the next stage,” he says.
The global medical category winner in 2025 was OnCue, a smart keyboard developed by Italian designer Alessandra Galli to assist people living with Parkinson’s disease by using visual and haptic cues to help manage motor symptoms and reduce typing errors.
Organisers say the best entries typically identify a clear problem, demonstrate thoughtful design thinking and present a technically feasible solution.
Submissions for the 2026 James Dyson Award are now open, with entries closing at midnight on 15 July 2026.
Students and recent graduates in design and engineering disciplines can enter through the official competition website www.jamesdysonaward.org.