Seira Yasumatsu Wins 3rd Place Award at Stanford Design Challenge for Grow ’n Gather

On April 18, 2018,The Stanford Center on Longevity named the three top awards in the 2017-2018 Design Challenge competition. Her design, “Grow and Gather” is a portable workbench and rest device that helps to facilitate community gardening for all ages and abilities, promoting social engagement for a happier and healthier lifestyle. Gather is a universal garden helper designed to allow people of all ages, abilities, and disabilities to garden and to promote social engagement for a happier and healthier lifestyle. The helper takes the form of a movable cart that incorporates support for walking and sitting, storage for gardening tools and a modular design that allows the gardener to configure the cart to their own particular needs. The product was named “Gather” to inspire people to gather around the device, promoting social engagement for its users.

All finalists receive $1,000 to build a prototype and travel expenses are covered to bring the teams to Stanford University to present their designs to a panel of renowned industry, academic, and government leaders. Additionally, finalists spend the day after the competition at the Stanford Graduate School of Business to receive entrepreneurial guidance on taking their product/service to market.