For Immediate Release Contact: Rebecka Chall 810-287-3940 becki@publiclab.org

Public Lab Selected as a Semi-Finalist for the 2013 Buckminster Fuller Challenge

August 19, 2013 – Public Lab has been named a 2013 Semi-Finalist in the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, the prestigious annual design science competition named "Socially-Responsible Design's Highest Award" by Metropolis Magazine. The Challenge awards $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a whole systems-based solution that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.

As we face global demand increases for energy and consumer products, and their resultant disproportionate health and environment impacts in low-income communities, the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science empowers residents to challenge government and industry environmental health data through collaborative development of inexpensive, open-source monitoring tools and techniques.

“Public Lab was created to address an existing gap -- individuals do not have the means to engage in monitoring and decision-making about the environmental health of their communities. Public Lab is honored to be a member of this group of game changing, innovative projects. Recognition among this elite group serves to validate the hard work being done by Public Lab communities around the world to use simple, low-cost tools to advocate for, and engage in, decisions being made that impact the environmental health in their communities,” commented Shannon Dosemagen, President of Public Lab.

After an initial rigorous vetting process by BFI’s multi-disciplinary review team, which included an in-depth interview, our project was chosen from a pool of hundreds of entries from around the world, to be one of 19 Semi-Finalists this year. It will now be featured as a top tier project in BFI’s Idea Index and featured on their website.

Semi-finalists will be reviewed and discussed by a board of 7 distinguished jurors, which includes industrial designer Jay Baldwin; Jason McLennan, Founder of International Living Future Institute; Andrew Revkin, journalist and author of New York Times blog, Dot Earth and Woody Tasch, Founder and Chairman of Slow Money.

Finalists will be announced in October and the winner, runner up, and honorable mention(s) will be announced at the conferring ceremony in New York on November 14th.

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge is the premier international competition recognizing initiatives which take a comprehensive, anticipatory, design approach to radically advance human well being and the health of our planet’s ecosystems. The 2013 Semi-finalists are providing workable solutions to some of the world’s most significant challenges including water scarcity, food supply, health, energy consumption and shelter. The Challenge is a program of The Buckminster Fuller Institute, which aims to deeply influence the ascendance of a new generation of design-science pioneers who are leading the creation of an abundant and restorative world economy that benefits all humanity.

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