April 27, 2026

Ferris State’s Wege Prize international circularity competition debuts bold ideas to solve challenges from hunger to pollution

Wege Prize, the annual competition that ignites game-changing solutions for the future by inspiring university students around the world to redesign the way economies work, has announced their five finalists for this year’s edition.

In a first, all the teams vying for global honors this year hail from Africa, a reflection of the continent’s booming movement to embrace the value of waste and reimagine production/consumption dynamics through the regenerative lens of the circular economy.

“It also reflects the passion, commitment, and collective spirit of young African entrepreneurs who have cultivated a mindset of cooperative disruption and changemaking,” said Gayle DeBruyn, leader of Wege Prize and a professor at Ferris State University’s Kendall College of Art and Design, which organizes the competition with support from the Wege Foundation.

Wege Prize, a West Michigan-born concept, developed by the Wege Center for Sustainable Design at KCAD with the support of The Wege Foundation, is an annual competition that ignites games-changing solutions for the future by inspiring college students around the world to collaborate across institutional, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries and redesign the way economies work.

In May, the five finalist teams will present real-world solutions developed over the course of a nine-month process with expert input from Wege Prize’s judges.

Finalist projects include an emissions control and recapture system for incinerators, a sustainable edible insect rearing and processing system addressing infant malnutrition, and a use of banana crop waste to make affordable and biodegradable sanitary pads.

Another team is creating flour from local farming byproducts including whey, which is typically discarded and can end up contaminating water sources, while the fifth finalist turns waste streams from cocoa production into wastewater filtration devices and soil-enhancing biochar, a type of charcoal.

With big ideas for a world reeling from hunger, climate impacts, food waste and inequity, these five student teams step forward into the final phase of the competition to share their innovative solutions publicly for the first time at the 2026 Wege Prize Awards.

The free public event takes place Friday, May 15, streaming live at wegeprize.org and live, in person, starting at 10 a.m. at Ferris State University’s KCAD. An accompanying free livestream that will be available globally at wegeprize.org.

ABOUT THE FINALISTS

After months of research, learning, and experimentation, these five groups of collaborative student problem solvers have emerged from an initial field of 87 teams to be named finalists in Wege Prize 2026.

The annual competition ignites game-changing solutions for the future by inspiring college/university students around the world to collaborate across institutional, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries to redesign the way economies work.

• Agri Nova is addressing seasonal limitations of harvesting edible grasshoppers— an increasingly vital and culturally significant protein source, especially in parts of the world with food insecurity—by developing modular, low-impact farming units that adapt to local conditions and enable year-round production.
• Ecoscrubber is creating a hybrid emission control and carbon-capture system designed to eliminate toxic pollutants and greenhouse gases from incinerators while transforming captured residues into valuable construction materials.
• Egret Pads is turning banana crop waste into affordable, biodegradable sanitary pads for women in Rwanda's low-resource communities, creating dignified access to menstrual health through a circular system that empowers women, supports farmers, and returns used pads back to the soil as fertilizer.
• Nutri-Más is blending whey—typically discarded by dairy producers and a cause of water contamination—with locally grown sorghum, maize, and groundnuts to create a nutrient-dense composite flour for children facing malnutrition in Bor, South Sudan.
• UniThread EcoHusk is reimagining discarded cocoa husks—which degrade soil and harbor pests and disease when left to rot—as raw materials for both soil-enhancing biochar, a type of charcoal, and activated charcoal-based purification kits that can keep 95% of textile dye pollution out of water and wastewater streams.

“These teams from Africa are showing the world the power of true interdisciplinary collaboration and design thinking to address the world’s wicked problems, with a particular opportunity to become part of the fast-growing circular economy now exploding on their continent,” DeBruyn said.

DeBruyn points to recent reporting on Africa's waste management market, valued at $21.7 billion in 2025 and growing about 5% annually, “where startups are turning plastics, organics, and e-waste into value streams that generate jobs, reduce emissions, and create circular supply chains strengthening local economies.”

These circular economy enterprises are using “waste-to-value models” that create revenue streams from what were once simply onerous costs for disposal — while adding jobs and, as the Wege Prize teams prove, solving pollution, scarcity and hunger issues.

The next Wege Prize application period begins later this year, in August 2026. The organizers are expecting a competitive field, so applicants are encouraged to start organizing their teams now.  Information for 2027 will be available later this year at wegeprize.org/apply.

As part of Wege Prize, the participating student teams turn their ideas, starting as informal proposals, into robust and feasible solutions. With the input of expert judges, the competing teams employ research, market analysis, and real-world prototyping and testing to advance their plans.

Established in 2013, Wege Prize encourages student teams to solve complex, layered problems with diverse perspectives / knowledge fields and an interdisciplinary, collaborative approach. The competition’s rules and design brief call for developing new, tangible solutions to producing and consuming essential goods — in sustainable ways that can be applied and used after the competition ends.