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Creative Ring is Organising 2-day Sessions in Eindhoven
Design and produce your own wearable, take part in the competition and win up to €50,000. It’s all possible thanks to a EU project that invests €2.4 million to create ethical and sustainable wearable technologies and smart textiles all across Europe. Eindhoven, along with Brussels, Barcelona and London, will be hosting a support program to help contestants create their wearables. In Eindhoven, this will be on May 18-19, during Dutch Technology Week. The deadline for the contest is May 31.

WEAR Sustain” is organising the competition to develop what could or should be considered Next Generation Wearables and smart textiles that are critical-ethical-aesthetic. It’s all about collaboration. The program is seeking applications from teams in art or design to work with technology or engineering entrepreneurs to co-innovate.

Closely connected to the competition is the “Creative Ring“, a network of creative industries in Eindhoven, Ghent, Brussels, Aarhus and Barcelona. Creative Ring wants to build a European, technology-supported experimental ecosystem for creative talents, professionals, and stakeholders.

“To develop best practices for future creative and technology collaborations.”WEAR Sustain’s main goal,

A total fund of €2.4m will be made available over two years, to fund 48 teams. Winners will receive support via innovation vouchers and input from mentors, experts and hubs to help realise their ideas, and help towards taking prototypes to market. Up to €50,000 of funding is available to teams, which offers the means to jumpstart promising co-created concepts, and receive support from experts towards the development of a prototype as a possible go-to-market trajectory.

WEAR Sustain’s goal is to develop best practices for future creative and technology collaborations. In addition it will create sustainable and ethical innovation methodologies for wearable technology, smart and electronic textiles. Competition applicants must address one of seven ethics and sustainability themes such as manufacturing, waste, energy and health, as well as personal data and ethics during the development of their prototypes.