WASHINGTON - SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association and SPI’s Future of Plastics Foundation announced the official opening of the plastics industry’s 2014 Student Video Contest Wednesday. This year’s theme is “Innovating in the 21st Century” and asks graduate and undergraduate students, as teams and/or as individuals, to submit 2-4 minute videos that explore the future of plastics in the realms of innovation, design freedom and the economics of plastics.
“The history of the plastics industry is rich with innovations and developments that continue to affect our daily lives in ways that many of us never even think to notice. But the truth is that the story of plastic’s past has already been told; we want students to tell us the story of plastic’s future,” said SPI President and CEO William R. Carteaux. “Many of the items that we take for granted today seemed like science fiction even a decade ago, but what innovations in plastic will we be saying that about in 10, 25 or even 50 years from now? That’s the question we want our best and brightest to answer in the 2014 Student Video Contest and its theme of ‘Innovating in the 21st Century.’”
Entries can be submitted on SPI’s Student Video Contest website and will be judged on creativity, originality and how effectively the video promotes innovation in the plastics industry. Prizes will be awarded to the top three submissions: the third place winner will receive a $3,500 cash prize, the second place winner will receive a $5,000 cash prize and, for the first time in the competition’s history, the grand prize winner will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Orlando, Fla. for NPE2015, the premier event for the entire plastics industry.
“We have seen many great examples in the past illustrating the immense value plastic has in today’s society,” said Frank Kavanagh, VP of Sales for Maguire Products, Inc., and Chair of SPI’s Communications and Marketing Advisory Committee (CMAC). “With the added excitement of NPE next spring, we are all thinking about what tomorrow may hold for our industry. At the end of the day, these students will be the ones determining the future of plastics, and we can’t wait to see what they can dream up.”
“NPE offers the companies and individuals that are shaping the future with their innovative products a forum to access the people, processes, science and information they need to get their ideas off the drawing board and into reality,” said Gene Sanders, SPI’s senior vice president of trade shows and conferences. “I can’t think of a more fitting venue for the plastics industry professionals of tomorrow to share their vision of the future and for that reason SPI will be proud to host the winners of this year’s Student Video Contest at NPE2015.”
The 2014 Student Video Contest is open to all full-time students in an undergraduate or graduate plastics program at any accredited postsecondary educational institution in the U.S. Submissions will be accepted from now until Nov. 30. This year’s competition is generously being sponsored by Maguire Products, Inc., Gardner Business Media, Inc., Novatec, Inc., Royce International, Davis-Standard LLC, Sumitomo Corp., Asahi Kasei Corp., BASF Global and Steinwall, Inc.
For more information and the official contest rules, visit the competition website at www.plasticsindustry.org/studentvideocontest.cfm