Diamond Miner De Beers has announced that entries for the 2024 Shining Light Awards (SLA) jewellery design competition are officially open.

The competition falls under the De Beers Group Designers Initiative (DBGDI), a youth beneficiation skills development initiative aimed at inspiring, igniting and enabling young jewellers with “world-class” jewellery design and manufacturing skills in each of the De Beers Group diamond-producing countries – Botswana, Canada, Namibia and South Africa.

Since its launch over 25 years ago, the company says the SLA has been a “springboard” for emerging jewellery designers across De Beers’ diamond-producing countries.

The prize pool for this year’s competition is R1.6-million per country.

The competition runs every two years and is open to jewellery designers aged 18 to 35, who are in their final year, have graduated from a jewellery design programme or have relevant experience in jewellery design. 

The competition provides a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity for youth to showcase their talent. Entries for the 2024 SLA competition will be open from June 19 to August 16.

De Beers Global Sightholder Sales VP for corporate affairs Otsile Mabeo explains that the SLA is part of the company’s Building Forever Sustainability Strategy commitment to ‘Accelerate Equal Opportunity’.

“We at De Beers are committed to making an impact beyond the life of the mine by ensuring that every natural diamond we discover contributes to the sustainable development of our host communities wherever we have our operations.

“The SLA creates an enabling environment for growth, skills transfer, entrepreneurship, global experiences and mentorship in the jewellery design industry and we are excited to support youth across Botswana, Canada, Namibia and South Africa develop jewellery design and manufacturing skills,” Mabeo says.

The company notes that this year’s theme is ‘luxury redefined’, which recognises the “power of Millennials and GenZ to tell their story through design”.

The theme calls on entrants to innovate and curate a future forward definition of luxury that focuses on being authentic, innovative and inclusive while celebrating diversity. The theme calls on the youth to show the world what luxury means to them.  

“The SLA has evolved over the past years from being just a jewellery design competition to a youth-enablement initiative that celebrates and capacitates jewellery design talent. It creates new and optimises existing facets of the diamond value chain – from jewellery design and manufacturing to sales, marketing and entrepreneurship.

“The theme gives our entrants the space to really create something that accurately reflects their identity and values in today’s era, to define luxury in a brand new way. We are looking forward to seeing how they will interpret the theme,” says De Beers Managed Operations MD Moses Madondo.

Winners from the four producer countries will be announced in November at a prestigious gala awards ceremony in Johannesburg, following judging by an esteemed international panel. 

The company says the awards for this year have been restructured to meet the winner and runners-up at their particular stage of career or business. There are three options awardees can choose from and prizes include various combinations of business support, internships, skills development and tuition support for studies.