STUST’s "Shine-Backers" team won "Silver Award," "Innovation Experiment Award," "Village-in-Residence Award “and” Team Spirit Award” in the 2016 Rural Migrant Farmers Competition— with a total prize money of NT$ 29 million

The "Shine-Backers" team comes from the Department of Innovation and Product Design of STUST. It was invited to participate in the 2016 Rural Migrant Rural Competition, organized by the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau of the Executive Yuan's Agricultural Committee and was awarded "Silver Award," "Innovation Experiment Award," "Village-in-Residence Award," and "Team Spirit Award” in the 2016 Rural Migrant Farmers Competition—with a total prize money of NT$ 29 million The team is composed of eight students, led by Prof. Hung-Ming Chen of the Department of Creative Product Design. Even though this was the first participation in the competition, it was highly appraised. After four rounds of intense evaluation by judges, the team stood out of all the 20 strong final teams from the Taiwan University, University of Success, Chongshing University, and Tunghai University. During their stay in the village for two months, they not only invigorated the rural area, but also created their most valuable experience.

【STUST’s "Shine-Backers" team won "Silver Award”】

Rural Migrant Farmers Competition once won the "Global Education Innovation Award" Asian Bronze Medal Award. It has been an important indicator of the development of rural communities and an important contest as well. After the STUST team was composed, interviews and records had been made in several rural communities before they finally chose the new community in Da-Shun Village, Changhua County–-the hometown of grape. The team was elected and awarded NT$ 120,000. During the summer vacation, the team traveled to the community, ancient houses, vineyards and local enterprises to obtain nutrients for their creativity for later use of design expertise and creative implementation of their concept. They developed such new products as chairs, vines, grape dyers, star maps, bio-carbon applications, emerging dolls and many others; they also organized a series of activities, such as "Community Revitalization" and "Mosquito Cinema," to assist the rural development of value-added industries and the effective use of agricultural waste, hoping to turn it into a tourist art village in the future development of the rural community.

【STUST’s "Shine-Backers" team won "Silver Award," "Innovation Experiment Award," "Village-in-Residence Award “and” Team Spirit Award” in the 2016 Rural Migrant Farmers Competition.】

Prof. Hung-Ming Chen felt that the students had changed over the four months. The nine people driven to Changhua were at first afraid of speaking with people when they interacted with the community residents. As the students changed their orientation from guests to new locals, they not only tried to improve their rural visibility through the community fan page, but also hoped to reuse the waste after the grape harvest to create a higher economic value and truly implemented the "migratory rural areas" spirit. They also tried to combine plant growth cycles with local cultural development, hoping that the difference in each season would allow visitors to have a different expectation for rural tourism, experience the real life of the settlement, and implement the original eco-museum there.

【STUST’s "Shine-Backers" team won "Silver Award," "Innovation Experiment Award," "Village-in-Residence Award” and “Team Spirit Award” in the 2016 Rural Migrant Farmers Competition: team members and judges.】

The team members heavily replied upon their excellent team cooperation and practical ability over the past three years in the Department of Innovation and Digital Design at Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology. In the two months of their rural life together, they turned their experience into a practical operation working with the residents to stimulate the results for their design. In addition, the competition will become the subject of eight members of the graduation project, and the future will see them integrate more resources into the development of social enterprise business model of campus derivatives. They will not only continue to inject energy for the design of rural areas, but also work hard on the internationalization of Taiwan’s agriculture.

【 “Shine-Backers” Visited the Vineyard during a photographic exhibition】