Nick Poteracki from Lake Zurich, Ill., won first place in the Eye for Why, a Dyson international design competition, for his water bottle filtration system. Poteracki's Drop Portable Water Filtration Unit replaces the traditional water bottle with one that has filters near the spout.

Teddy Lu, IDSA | 2010 IDSA Midwest District Student Merit Winner | University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign

2008 Midwest District Student Merit Winner

Notre Dame’s Ashley Ceniceros celebrated her birthday by claiming the Midwest District’s Student Merit Award. It was a fitting present for a designer who devised a way to extend the lives of babies born in developing countries well past the day of their own birth.

“Last summer, I spent two months in Nepal designing goods for a fair trade cooperative,” she reported. “I lived with a Nepali family and worked alongside artisans everyday.”

2007 Midwest District Student Merit Winner

Before leaving Togo at age 16 to come to the US, Mansour Ourasanah knew he loved to draw.

“I watched cartoons and the only way I could remember them was to draw them,” Ourasanah noted. “I never took art classes, but I became known as the kid who drew.”

After mastering English, Ourasanah enrolled at Notre Dame, where he tried out mechanical engineering. “I didn’t like the technicality of engineering,” he reported. “I wanted something more artistic, so I tried architecture. Then I discovered industrial design.”

Toshihiro Fujimura
IDSA Midwest District Student Merit Award Winner
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Contact
www.toshi.us