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FDSA 2025: A reveal of First City University College’s finalists

February 28, 2025

These 3 finalists from First City University College will now proceed to FDSA 2025's regional-level round, competing against 15 other winning projects from this year's participating institutions

The 15th installation of the DOTY Awards sees the introduction of an exciting new category: the Future Design Star Award! This new award initiative seeks to discover and platform young talents within verified design institutions across the nation whose work reveals an immense level of potential for the industry.

With a system in place unlike other student awards, ACGMEDIA works directly with a handful of distinguished schools and academies across Malaysia to bottleneck only the very best projects — eliminating the ambiguity of participants and solidifying the relationship between the institution and its award candidate students.

The Future Design Star Award evaluation process requires each member institution to submit a fixed number of their very best student projects. The top three students of each school will then present to a panel of esteemed judges to compete for the ultimate prize: winning at the DOTY Awards level. Following this, the three student projects that lead the regional stage will receive their win at the 2025 DOTY Awards Ceremony, where they gain access to a crowd of Malaysia’s most elite design studios and industry partners.

First City University College institution-level finalists for the 2025 Future Design Star Award
Kimberly Oddie Grinsam
FDSA 2025 finalist with project dubbed ‘Rempah Ratus’
Justina Lee Yi
FDSA 2025 finalist with project dubbed ‘Lit Books’
Received on behalf of Lee Zhu Ying
FDSA 2025 finalist with project dubbed ‘The Food Justice Centre’
Advancing to the regional level of FDSA 2025

First City University College finalists will now move on to the regional level of FDSA 2025, where they are to present their design narratives to a decorated panel of judges comprised of Malaysia’s award-winning designers and architects. The student finalists will be put to the test with a real world experience of pitching their designs as if to a board of committed clients.

FDS 2025
FDS 2025
FDS 2025
FDS 2025
FDS 2025

FDSA 2025 Judges

Tennyson Chia, Chief Design Officer of Sachi
Jackal Chua, Managing Director of Metrics Global
Ar. Alan Teh, Founder & Managing Director of AAT Architects
John Jong, Principal & Group Design Director of Thinkscape
Keith Chan, Founder of Northmos

A big congratulations to the finalists from First City University College, and the very best of luck at the regional-level live presentation!

Curious to learn more? Read the designspeak.asia exclusive interview with First City University College on their MOU signing with the FDSA initiative and stay tuned on all updates through the official DOTY Awards Facebook page.

Head to First City University College’s official website at www.firstcity.edu.my

Please contact +6012 220 3893 for any and all enquiries regarding the Future Design Star Award initiative and the annual Designer of the Year (DOTY) Awards