Inaugural year honour for BCU designer.
A student from Birmingham City University has won the public vote for Best Undergraduate Design at the Ingle & Rhode Fairtrade Gold Design Awards. This is the first year the awards have run, recognising up and coming talent within the jewellery design industry. Originally from Taipei in Taiwan, aspiring jewellery design undergraduate, Maggie Lin Jung-Hsuan, has been named a winner beating hundreds of budding designers across the country.
20 year old Maggie was able to rally support from her friends and family to help her win following an online public vote. The public vote winners, highly commended and overall winner were announced at the Fair Luxury 2017 conference in Birmingham on 25th April.
Maggie, who is currently attending the Birmingham City University where she is studying Design for Industry BA top up, said: “Winning the undergraduate public vote for the The Fairtrade Gold Awards is amazing and I can’t thank Ingle & Rhode enough for giving me this opportunity. The exposure this opportunity has provided is outstanding and will put me in good stead when looking for employment after I have finished my studies.”
Tim Ingle, co-founder at Ingle & Rhode, which runs the Fairtrade Gold Design Awards, added: “There has been an unbelievable amount of talent during all stages of the awards this year and we’re so glad the public got behind the finalists to show their support. We all know how daunting it is when starting out in a career or at university so by having that backing from the public means a lot to the applicants.”
Fairtrade gold provides small-scale miners and their communities in developing countries the opportunity for better living and working conditions. This award has been aimed to raise awareness of Fairtrade gold amongst jewellery students, apprentices and those early in their jewellery careers.
