Dubai Design Week, a festival that showcases an extensive array of work by designers from 26 countries,kicked off October 24.One exhibition, called theGlobal Grad Show, showcasespieces created by students atthe world's leading design schools. Since it launched in 2015, the show hasbecome the largest exhibition of student-made design work in the world. This year, students from 50 different universities, representing 30 countries across six continents, traveled to Dubai to exhibit 135 projects.Kyuho Song andBoa Oh, graduate studentsfrom theSamsung Art and Design Institute inSeoul, are showcasing theirclever prototype for a solar-powered socket. One side has solar panels, while the other has holeswhere you inserta two-prong plug.You just stick thesuction cup to a window when it's sunny outside, and the mini-solar panels transfer power to the socket's internal battery.It takes five to eight hours to fully charge the socket, which can offer up to 10 hours of power,Song tells Business Insider.Right now, the socketcan store about 1,000mAh (amp-hours, a unit of charge), which is enough to keep a60-watt light bulb lit for about 20 hours. It'snot quite enough to fully charge a dead iPhone, however, since the iPhone 5 features a1,440 mAh-capacity battery, andthe iPhone 6 Plus battery needs2,915 mAh.In the next iteration, Song and Oh hope to increase the device'sbattery storage and charge time. The solar socketisstill just a working prototype, and the team doesn't have any plans to sell ityet.If the duo isable to amp up its efficiency, the device would come in handy when your phone is dead and an outlet is nowhere in sight. Songimaginesthe socket could be especially useful in places without electricity, like an airplane, boat, or the outdoors.In addition to the convenience, of course, it wouldoffer a more sustainable (and cheap) way to generate electricity.SEE ALSO:This rejected design for a futuristic new Guggenheim museum would have been incredibleJoin the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: Forget solar panels ' Elon Musk wants to build Solar roofs
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