Congratulations to Wardina Afiqah Mohd Hasrin for taking second place in the 2025 World Accreditation Day poster contest, and to the team of Laura Uraine and Tania Blancas for taking third place. Each runner-up entry earned a prize of USD 500.
Wardina Afiqah Mohd Hasrin is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Linguistics at Universiti Putra Malaysia. Her introduction to the world of accreditation came during an internship at an accredited medical testing laboratory.
What was the inspiration behind your design?
My journey into the world of accreditation began during a four-month internship at an accredited medical testing laboratory. This invaluable experience gave me profound insight into the critical role accreditation plays in ensuring quality and safety in our daily lives. I witnessed how the accredited laboratory I was attached to gained recognition and trust through accreditation, which allowed its services to be accepted not only locally but also by international customers. It also underscored the importance of accreditation for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), particularly in enhancing operational efficiency and driving continuous improvement for conformity assessment bodies. Beyond these benefits, I came to appreciate how accreditation serves as a gateway to new business opportunities and global markets, especially through the advantages provided by mutual recognition arrangements (MRAs).
How does your poster illustrate this year’s theme?
The poster I designed illustrates the theme “Accreditation: Empowering Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)” by highlighting the crucial role accreditation plays in strengthening cross-border markets and facilitating international trade for SMEs. It demonstrates how accreditation enhances the business effectiveness and growth of SMEs by providing significant benefits, including improved operational efficiency, increased credibility, and expanded access to local and global opportunities. The poster underscores that, through accreditation, even SMEs can unlock their full potential to compete and succeed on a global scale.
Laura Uraine serves in the role of Senior Specialist, Accreditation Program Development Group at the International Accreditation Service (IAS). She started working for IAS in 2018 supporting the administrative and accounting team. Since that time, she has moved into the Accreditation Program Development Group with increasing responsibility supporting marketing efforts, working on publications and content, and coordinating and executing events as well as supporting the quality team.
Tania Blancas serves as a graphic designer for IAS. She has been supporting IAS publication work since 2015, specializing in Spanish translations, typesetting, building and technical documents, and graphic design. She has been working as a graphic designer and translator for various organizations since 2004.
What was the inspiration behind your design?
The theme of World Accreditation Day for 2025, Accreditation: Empowering Small and Medium Enterprises could easily be communicated to anyone not familiar with accreditation through simple iconography and use of the globe / sphere to represent the reciprocal relationship between accreditation and business worldwide. We also wanted to communicate how accreditation is an important tool to elevate quality at all levels of society and not only major industries.
How does your poster illustrate this year’s theme?
We looked for iconography that demonstrated empowerment, success, and working together.
