The 2025 Contest is Now Open for Entries!

Submit your best new product ideas in any of seven categories for a chance at $25,000 USD and other great prizes. Here’s how to get started.

Help build a better tomorrow

Since Tech Briefs magazine launched the Create the Future Design contest in 2002 to recognize and reward engineering innovation, over 15,000 design ideas have been submitted by engineers, students, and entrepreneurs in more than 100 countries. Join the innovators who dared to dream big by entering your ideas today.

Read About All the 2024 Winning Inventions

Special Report spotlights the eight amazing winners in 2024 as well as honorable mentions in each category, plus the top ten most popular entries as voted by our community.

Click here to read more

A ‘Create the Future’ Winner Featured on ‘Here’s an Idea’

Spinal cord injury affects 17,000 Americans and 700,000 people worldwide each year. A research team at NeuroPair, Inc. won the Grand Prize in the 2023 Create the Future Design Contest for a revolutionary approach to spinal cord repair. In this Here’s an Idea podcast episode, Dr. Johannes Dapprich, NeuroPair’s CEO and founder, discusses their groundbreaking approach that addresses a critical need in the medical field, offering a fast and minimally invasive solution to a long-standing problem.

Listen now

Thank you from our Sponsors

“At COMSOL, we are very excited to recognize innovators and their important work this year. We are grateful for the opportunity to support the Create the Future Design Contest, which is an excellent platform for designers to showcase their ideas and products in front of a worldwide audience. Best of luck to all participants!”

— Bernt Nilsson, Senior Vice President of Marketing, COMSOL, Inc.

“From our beginnings, Mouser has supported engineers, innovators and students. We are proud of our longstanding support for the Create the Future Design Contest and the many innovations it has inspired.”

— Kevin Hess, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Mouser Electronics

Follow Us for Create the Future News

A Better Way to Text and Touch-Type

Votes: 0
Views: 8169
Electronics

Get the full power of QWERTY input without QWERTY by allocating all keystrokes directly onto the tips of our fingers. A single press for ten letters, shift a thumb for eight letters more, shift the other thumb for the last eight letters. Hold one finger and press another and have 100 simple keystrokes without moving your hands, just the tips of your fingers!

Now you can type accurately without looking, on a small device with a simple, universal interface. Type while walking or laying in bed, and stop looking at a keyboard.

This is an actual product that we have been working on that will allow people to touch-type on phones and tablets or any device that uses Bluetooth or USB. It is designed to be used with all ten fingers or as few as two and anything in between. "it Types" one-handed, left or right, so you can keep a mouse (or sandwich) in the other hand. A safer way to text because with only ten keys, you don't need to look at the keyboard. Type on the back of a phone or with your hand in a pocket rather than poking a touch screen with tiny little buttons.

Laws ban texting and punish users but this technology can make text input safer and easier so lives may be saved and persons with disabilities will have better access to computing. Every keystroke is provided including cursor keys and all symbols. You get the full keyboard experience from a device the size of a deck of cards, soon to be built in the USA. The same interface could be added to a cell phone case, a game controller, an ATM and more.
I encourage you to watch our video and than Google search in10did to learn more, watch videos and see how everything is provided.

We are creating the future and really appreciate your vote of endorsement! Help us make this technology available to who need assistance and to those who are ready to let QWERTY go!

Video

  • Awards

  • 2012 Top 100 Entries

Like this entry?

Voting is closed!

  • About the Entrant

  • Name:
    Wayne Rasanen
  • Type of entry:
    individual
  • Software used for this entry:
    Pro Engineer
  • Patent status:
    patented