In an exciting culmination of pioneering ideas, expert guidance, teamwork, and a passion for advancing the circular economy, the finale of Wege Prize 2025 clinched winning spots for the top three teams. Organized by Ferris State University’s Kendall College of Art and Design, this international design competition inspires interdisciplinary five-person student teams from around the world to collaborate on game-changing, sustainable solutions to today’s “wicked problems” by redesigning the way economies work in support of a circular economy, with each of the five finalist teams sharing in the competition’s $65,000 USD in prize money.
Announced during the competition’s dramatic finalist presentation and awards event in May, the first-, second- and third-place winning teams’ inventive concepts were recognized for their sustainable, real
world approaches to the economic, environmental, and societal challenges of malnutrition, textile waste, and wastewater pollution through designs that align with the circular economy’s restorative,
closed-loop production and material consumption cycle.
“Instead of a linear model – take, waste and dispose – these teams are pioneering pathways towards a circular economy; one that is regenerative, restorative, and intentional by design,” says Gayle DeBruyn,
a KCAD professor who is on the organizing team for Wege Prize. “It’s exciting to see the teams’ innovative ideas take shape with the guidance of Wege Prize’s dedicated judges and evolve into real
world solutions.”
The students from Wege Prize 2025 multidisciplinary winning teams collaborated across majors in science, resource management, agriculture, accounting, economics, engineering and communications
from educational facilities in six countries worldwide. Together, the teams advanced through the four phase, nine-month competition from an initial pool of 90 teams from 31 countries.
Recognized for reinventing conventional production and consumption practices through environmentally and economically sound approaches refined through in-depth research, testing, and
prototyping with direct feedback from the competition’s panel of expert judges, the winners of Wege Prize 2025 are: – –
3rd Place ($10,000): Envirovex, a team reducing the spread of antimicrobial resistance through bio-base wastewater treatment.
2nd Place ($20,000): Rethread Africa, a group developing sugarcane bagasse into a synthetic fabric alternative that decomposes without industrial composting.
1st Place ($30,000): Agpress, a team using mealworms and maize to develop protein-enriched flour to address malnutrition.
Images Courtesy of: Wege
Two other student teams, Dry Fresh Solution and Eco Nasi, each received $2,500 awards as finalists. “We have participated in Wege Prize before, but each time we built on what we did before,” says
Charles Otieno Oyamo of Rethread Africa, who has competed since 2023. Anthony Ilalio Mbunju, lead of Senene Farm who won second place in Wege Prize 2024, mentored
2025’s winning team, Agpress, and is currently writing books, attending conferences, forming partnerships with past colleagues, and opening businesses.
“Winning a prize is one thing, but establishing a business is a whole other story,” said Mbunju to students from the winning teams during this year’s Judges Forum. “What I learned last year is you
should really value the process you went through to reach today – what are you leaving with here, today? Are you living as a leader?”
Wege Prize solutions are making a real-world impact. The 2023 winning team Banana Leather was featured on NBC News and later won the $1 million Hult Prize for their Banofi Leather eco-conscious
leather alternative made from banana crop waste. And in 2025, their team lead, Jinali Mody, was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 winner.
Other teams are being noticed as well. Winner FruiFresh from 2024 is helping Rwanda’s small farmers and sellers reduce produce spoilage by way of the team’s pioneering charcoal cooling system that keeps
produce fresh without refrigeration or electricity. In addition, 2021 team The Chilensis advanced to prestigious business incubators, and the 2019 finalist Rutopia, an eco-sensitive tourism concepts
company, has been covered by Forbes, the United Nations, and more, gaining further funding and support. Brenda Maembe, team lead for 2025 Wege Prize winner Agpress, noticed the impact and growth of previous Wege Prize groups and hoped Wege Prize’s judges would connect with her team’s vision for mitigating malnutrition. “Those congratulations that we got [from the judges] – those are what inspired us – that they do believe in us, so we should keep on believing in ourselves and advance it even farther and we kept pushing for that,” she says.
Wege Prize is made possible through the continuing financial support of The Wege Foundation and KCAD, opening these unique opportunities for undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students
around the world — and helping take strides toward a greater circular economy.
Details on the winning teams are at www.wegeprize.org/2025-teams.
About Wege Prize
Wege Prize, a West Michigan-born concept developed by Ferris State University’s Kendall College of Art and Design (KCAD) Wege Center for Sustainable Design 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. To learn more, go to wegeprize.org.
Feature Image Courtesy of: Wege
