National High School Design Competition
An LJCDS senior is selected as a finalist.
Out of 722 entries from across the country, Sohan Chunduru ’22 earned one of the top three finalist positions for the National High School Design Competition, hosted by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Sohan is the third LJCDS student to be named a finalist since 2017. Two students earned an honorable mention.
The annual competition challenges students in Grades 9–12 to design a solution to a unique scenario. The 2022 challenge was to design a more peaceful and just world. Sohan’s design, Whale Tales, is a web application that allows children worldwide to connect for collaborative storytelling. It exposes children to different cultures and teaches them the values of teamwork and cooperation, building a community of empathetic future global citizens.
Sohan’s goal is to enable children to interact with peers from other countries to increase cultural awareness and provide hope for a more peaceful and just future.
The finalists are granted access to a mentor for both a one-on-one call and a virtual weekend event with the other finalists. During the virtual Mentor Weekend, finalists will meet each other, learn more about the design process and how designers solve everyday challenges, further discuss their design ideas, and prepare for the final presentations to the judges.
The final step is Judging Weekend in June 2022, where the finalists will present their updated designs live to a diverse panel of creative experts before the winner is announced.
Read Sohan’s featured story in La Jolla Light.
