Global Children's Design-a-thon 2021

Designathon Works, based in the Netherlands, organized the "Global Children's Design-a-thon 2021" around the "Clean Energy and Climate" theme. Children aged 9-12 participated with their projects. The finals for Kayseri was held online.

The local organizers were İnformel Eğitim-Çocuk İstanbul Danışmanlık for Turkey and Abdullah Gül University (AGU) Children's University for Kayseri. Out of 211 projects, 10 were shortlisted for the finals in Kayseri.

This year, the 6th edition of the organization featured children's projects on "Clean Energy and Climate," one of the UN Development Goals.

The children created solutions for clean energy use in their projects by focusing on the reasons and results of the global climate crisis and showed skills of creative and critical thinking, problem solving, questioning, communication, cooperation, and digital literacy.

Rector Prof. İhsan Sabuncuoğlu and Kocasinan District Mayor Ahmet Çolakbayrakdar were part of the jury that selected three projects to represent Kayseri in Amsterdam. Ali Kerem Yıldırım's "Wind Trap," Beren Keşoğlu's "Eco-Friendly Building," and Yağız Eymen Hanilçi's "SunPer" projects have been selected for international exhibition in the Netherlands.

Those three projects will be on exhibit among the first three projects of other cities around the world. Some of the projects/designs created by the children will be shared with relevant local governments so that they can be transformed into a product or service and used.