(VNF) - The British Council and Lien Foundation announced the originators of the 12 leading ideas for “Reimagined play” across Asia-Pacific and the UK.

The 2014 Elevate StartWell Challenge invited applicants to present innovative new concepts to improve the element of play in early childhood (0-8 years), reimagine urban spaces and playgrounds, and the way young children interact with space.

Entries were received from 12 countries, across disciplines that included design, architecture, early childhood, performing arts, technology and production. Ideas included pop-up spaces representing the local country, iPhone apps to encourage children to play outside within nature, spaces and concepts to enable full enjoyment for children with access requirements, and large-scale playgrounds inspired by typologies presented by the 2014 Lekker Architects-Lien Foundation project “A different class”.

The following 12 applicants of the Elevata StartWell Challenge, representing a perse range of nationalities, were judged the best by the panel, and will become Elevate Fellows for 2015: Ben Barker (UK), Bronwyn Cumbo (Australia), Paul Drury (UK), Neil Hobbs (Australia), Ngai Yuen Low (Malaysia), Chloe Meineck (UK), Grant Menzies (UK, Scotland), Dang Thi Minh Thu (Vietnam), Fakhrizal Nashr (Indonesia), Sumitra Pasupathy (Singapore), James Sale (UK), and Francis Sollano (the Philippines).

The panel of judges – consisting of senior representatives from the Lien Foundation, Lekker Architects (Singapore), British Council, Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] (Japan), St James’ Church Kindergarten (Singapore) and ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands (Singapore), Demos (UK) and international playground manufacturer Lappset – was hugely impressed by the creativity of applicants in approaching the Challenge.

The program prompted amazingly innovative and creative concepts to emerge from around the world, including Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia, the UK, Indonesia and Malaysia.

This February, the 12 Fellows will assemble in Tokyo and Yamaguchi (Japan), for a one week Innovation Camp, organised by the British Council, Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion and with the support of YCAM. The camp will also be facilitated by UK experts Shelagh Wright and Ella Britton.

There, they will work with local and international experts to further develop and refine their ideas, experience new and innovative models of design and ideation, and collaborate across countries. At the end of the Camp, the Fellows will resubmit their ideas for the opportunity to secure a portion of the SGD50,000 funding available to further develop their concepts.

Partners for the Fellowship and Innovation Camp components also include ICCE, Goldsmiths-University of London and Google.

Developed and presented by the British Council, Elevate is a program that aims to build a global community of problem-solvers, who will meet practical challenges with innovative solutions to social problems, such as urbanisation, aging populations and sustainability.

It is developed in partnership with Singapore philanthropic house the Lien Foundation in line with their StartWell initiative, which aims to rethink the priorities of childhood in Singapore. The partnership grew out of a mutual concern for social issues and an ambitious approach to harness creativity and values-based decision-making.

Besides, it can run in any country, with any partner interested in effecting social change via creativity and the British Council is currently seeking partners for future iterations of the program in other areas./.

Complied by VNF