Keen creators living in the Bay of Plenty have for the past few months been busily planning, designing and building innovations in the hope of taking home the top Young Innovators Award.

Now it's almost that time when locals can play their part to support local innovators and decide who takes home the coveted People's Choice prize.

Innovative Mount Mauganui college students

With a number of prizes including the Secondary School Supreme Winners (both a junior and senior category), an over 18s Supreme Winner and an Internship Award, Bay of Plenty residents are encouraged to have their say and vote on their favourite innovation in the People's Choice category. Bayfair Shopping Centre is again supporting the awards by hosting the People's Choice in-centre.

From today until Monday August 3, entries from each finalist will be displayed in the shopping centre where members of the public can vote for their favourite innovation. The winner of the People's Choice award will receive a $600 Bayfair voucher.

Bayfair Shopping Centre is excited to be housing the innovations and would love to see as many Bay patrons as possible getting behind the competition, says Bayfair Marketing Manager Kylie McGregor.

She's looking forward to playing host to the finalist round of innovations, and is really encouraged by the uptake of the competition in the region this year.

'It's always a really exciting time when we display the Young Innovator Award Finalists at Bayfair,” says Kylie. 'We are always blown away by the entries we see – year after year we see incredible innovations which is very encouraging for the future of our wonderful city. At Bayfair we're very proud to have a hand in and support these awards - I'm really looking forward to seeing the fruit of this year's innovations.”