What are you doing right now? Looking at social media, obvs. There you are, scrolling social – and it’s just one instance of how you interact with materials throughout your day. From your phone, to food packaging, to the shoes you walk in. There’s a globe full of stuff out there. And the creation of it is down to Materials Science. It’s where natural sciences meets engineering – and where material scientists engineer new stuff and improve the quality of yet more stuff. It’s that ‘yet more stuff’ that brings us back (predictably) to shoes. If you’ve been following us for a while you probably know how many shoes are produced every year. It’s about 3 times the global population. Every. Frickin. Year. (Roughly 24 billion pairs per year) Shoe waste also ends up in the sea. It’s not just the waste from finished shoes either. It’s the waste in creating the shoes in the first place. That’s why we’re out to break this toxic chain of overproduction. One of the ways we’re doing that is with non-profit organisation Innovation 4.4. and the 2022 Ocean’s Prize. The Ocean’s Prize is focused on the hunt to find a nature-based material. It’ll have to be compatible with 3D printing, be resilient enough to make footwear with, and decompose safely. So, if you’re a student, a post-grad, work in research and development – materialise yourself over to Innovation 4.4 and get your research proposal in with a chance to win this $100k prize. For more information check our Linkin Bio #marineweek #Vivobarefoot #MaterialScience #BetterSolutions # #Innovation4.4 #SustainableBusiness