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Eco-Friendly Designs Accepted Through 31 January for US $100,000 Live EDGE Environmental Competition

Posted on: Tuesday, 13 January 2009, 07:00 CST

LONDON, January 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --

- Global Challenge Offers Engineering Students and Professionals Rare Opportunities to Bring Their Designs to the Marketplace

Premier Farnell plc (LSE:pfl), the leading multi-channel, high service distributor and its companies (Farnell, Newark, Premier Electronics, Farnell-Newark CPC, and MCM), today announced that design submissions for the international design competition, Live EDGE - Electronic Design for the Global Environment will close on the 31st of January 2009. Since the competition's launch in October 2008, design engineers, students and academics from around the world have registered at http://www.live-edge.com to submit designs for an innovative product that utilises electronic components and has a positive impact on the environment. The majority of registrations to date have come from India, the US and China.

A unique prize package will be awarded for both the student and open/general competitions, which are running concurrently. The winner of each competition will receive a $25,000 USD cash prize, plus a unique package of support services valued at an additional $25,000USD from experts in the fields of design consultancy, marketing, legal and commerce, to drive the winning designs towards production. In addition, three runner-ups in each competition will receive $5,000 USD each.

"We are thrilled that the time to start judging the 2008 Live EDGE competition is approaching and we look forward to yet again experiencing the brilliance of our customers around the globe," said Harriet Green, Chief Executive Officer of Premier Farnell plc. "Once again, Live EDGE will showcase the most innovative designs from the global electronic design engineering community. Last year's competition was a huge success. I look forward to seeing this year's winners and helping to bring their designs to market."

Several of last year's Live EDGE winners have written blogs offering advice to entrants and detailing their experiences. These blogs, a sample entry, and complete details on the challenge are located at http://www.live-edge.com. Live EDGE Design Challenge groups are also available on Facebook and LinkedIn.

About LiveEdge:

Electronics engineers, students and inventors around the world are invited to submit designs for an innovative product that utilises electronic components and has a positive impact on the environment.

Entries can be submitted between the 1 October 2008 and the 31 January 2009. Judging will start on the 1 February 2009 and winners will be announced on the 2 of April 2009. The competition is open to anyone aged 18 or over.

The winning entrant for both the full-time student and the general/open category will receive a cash prize of $25,000 USD as well as a design support package valued at an additional $25,000 to move their design towards production. The support package will include the services of an electronic design consultancy to help develop the design to prototype stage, assistance with legal matters and IP registration, some marketing and publicity, as well as Premier Farnell's help in securing investment funding. The group will actively market the end product to millions of customers globally through their leading edge website, catalogue and direct marketing.

In addition, up to 3 entrants for the full-time student category and 3 entrants for the general/open category will be eligible for 'honourable mentions', each receiving a cash prize of $5,000.

More information about Live EDGE is available at h ttp://www.Live-EDGE.com.

About Premier Farnell

Premier Farnell plc (LSE:pfl) is a leading high service, multi-channel distributor of electronic, and industrial products and specialist services throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific. It goes to market with a differentiated value proposition, world-class marketing, a stocked range of 450,000+ products, and access to 4,000,000 more items from 3,500 top manufacturers. The company has group sales of GBP823.1m and over 4,100 employees globally.

While global in scope, Premier Farnell recognizes the individual needs of each market and has continued to internationalize its model accordingly, trading locally under different brand names. Its primary electronics businesses trade as Farnell in the UK, India, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Newark in the US, Canada and Mexico, and Premier Electronics in China. In Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Brazil the operation is known as Farnell Newark.

Premier Farnell has participated in the Business in the Community CR Index for three years and has been one of the 'biggest improvers' in the index in the last two years. The company is also a member of the FTSE4Good Index of Corporate and Social Responsibility and has published its own Corporate Social Responsibility report since 2002.

SOURCE Premier Farnell plc

Source: PR Newswire

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