• Expo 2020 Dubai offered design challenges to student participants
• More than 1,200 high school students took part in this year’s challenge
Dubai: The Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation (DIDI) is delighted to announce the winning teams of this year’s DIDI Project Design Space. With more than 1,200 students from 60 UAE schools taking part in the Project Design Space challenge, 15 schools made it to the grand finals, which was held at the Dubai Design District (d3) on Saturday 10th March.
Project Design Space offers students the rare opportunity to work on real design projects for actual clients. This year, students received design briefs from Expo 2020 Dubai, the first World Expo to be held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia region.
adidas, IBM, Alserkal Avenue and Splash also supplied briefs to the students.
The winners were announced as follows:
Expo 2020 Dubai
Nord Anglia International School designed Expop – an interactive game whereby visitors can interact together at the Expo and take part in a fun and engaging game to win merchandise or redeem points – for Expo 2020 Dubai’s challenge to create an experience for visitors from different cultures to connect easily.
adidas
Dubai Scholars Private School won best design for the adidas challenge, which was to develop an environmental campaign that inspires the public to take-action. The team designed an interactive recycling machine, whereby consumers, can recycle their plastic bottles and in return receive discounts from adidas. In addition, they also presented an alternative solution to the plastic bottle, introducing the idea of ‘organic plastic’ from banana peel.
IBM
The Applied School of Technology RAK, won the design challenge set by IBM to create a car room of the future. The team presented an innovate transportable car showroom with 4D seats, giving customers the ultimate car experience.
Alserkal Avenue
The English College won the best design concept set by Alserkal Avenue to design outdoor solutions to drive pedestrian traffic. They presented a shading design concept, placed on two levels, powered by a solar power pulley system. A simplistic yet effective solution, the shading has been designed to create interesting shadows across the space. Along with the colorful shading concept they also presented, an interactive map for visitors and chair table hybrids to sit against the walls for visitors to rest.
Splash
GEMS Millenium School won the wearable tech design challenge set by Splash. The team presented four fashion designs including a sports bag with a waterproof integrated speaker, with Bluetooth availability which can be connected to multiple devices as well as removable heels, fibre optic accessories for dresses and a hydration t-shirt.
Mohammed Abdullah, President of DIDI said: “The standard of applicants and the work that we have seen throughout Project Design Space has been phenomenal and really highlights the design potential in this region. DIDI’s goal is to nurture the next generation of designers in the UAE and there’s definitely a lot of talent for us to do just that. Congratulations to the winning teams, they have impressed us with their forward-thinking vision and exceptional designs.”
Alya Al-Ali, Expo 2020’s 25-year-old Director of Youth Connect, commented: “We are dedicated to engaging with and empowering students throughout the UAE, and the Project Design Space was a great opportunity to do so. It was so inspiring to see the students working together to come up with ingenious solutions that encourage Expo 2020 visitors to connect minds and share knowledge. This spirit of collaboration is exactly what our World Expo stands for, and we look forward to continuing to work with them on our journey to 2020 and beyond.”
The first of its kind in the region, DIDI is a not for profit design university that offers a unique design education in the form of a four-year Bachelor of Design Degree (BDes). The curriculum has been crafted in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Parsons School of Design, and offers a unique program that will give students the opportunity to design their own degree by choosing a cross disciplinary education from a choice of four design disciplines: Product Design, Strategic Design Management, Multimedia Design and Fashion Design. DIDI was established following the direction of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai and will welcome its first cohort of students in September this year.
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About Dubai Institute of Design and innovation:
The Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation (DIDI) is a private, not-for-profit education institution, established by TECOM Group, part of Dubai Holding, and Dubai Creative Clusters Authority as the main shareholders. DIDI will be accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education. As a world-class design education institution, DIDI is focused on nurturing, mentoring and creating the next generation of designers who will turn today’s ideas into tomorrow’s reality. DIDI’s industry-leading partnerships, unique approach to learning, and world-class facilities will enable students to follow their passions by creating their own career path, developing the skills they need to succeed in the global innovation-driven economy.
DIDI has entered into strategic collaborations with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and The New School’s Parsons School of Design (Parsons) to develop a curriculum that is designed to empower DIDI students to map out their own four-year educational journey, culminating in the region’s first-ever Bachelor of Design degree, with a choice of concentration in the areas of Product Design, Strategic Design Management, Media, and Fashion Design.
About Expo 2020
Expo 2020 Dubai is guided by the belief that innovation and progress are the result of people and ideas combining in new ways. For six months from 20 October, 2020, Expo aims to bring together 180 countries and millions of people to celebrate human ingenuity: ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’.
• During the six months from 20 October, 2020 to 10 April, 2021, we expect millions of people to visit Expo
• About 70 percent of all visitors are anticipated to come from outside the UAE – the largest proportion of international visitors in Expo history
• We aim to create and deliver an inclusive and global Expo with more than 200 participants, including nations, multilateral organisations, businesses and educational institutions
• Expo 2020 also has an ambitious volunteer programme, which aims to include more than 30,000 volunteers from a wide range of ages, nationalities, cultures and backgrounds
• The Expo site covers a total of 4.38 sqkm, including a 2 sqkm gated area. It is located adjacent to Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai South
• Expo 2020 Dubai is the first World Expo to take place in the MEASA (Middle East, Africa and South Asia) region
Visit: www.expo2020dubai.com
Follow: Twitter: @expo2020dubai | Facebook: @Expo2020Dubai | Instagram: expo2020dubai
About adidas AG
adidas is a global leader in the sporting goods industry with the core brands adidas and Reebok. Headquartered in Herzogenaurach/Germany, the company employs 60,000 people across the globe and generated sales of € 19 billion in 2016.
About Alserkal Avenue
Located in Al Quoz, Dubai and established in 2007, Alserkal Avenue is the region’s foremost contemporary arts and culture district. Alserkal Avenue hosts sixteen galleries and over forty creative businesses, cultivating a vibrant community of visual and performing arts organisations, designers, and artisanal spaces that has become an essential platform for the development of the creative industries in the United Arab Emirates.
In March 2017, Alserkal Avenue opened Concrete, a new space in the Avenue and the first building to be completed in the UAE by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), founded by Pritzker Architecture Prize-Laureate, Rem Koolhaas. Concrete provides a flexible, multipurpose venue for international arts and culture initiatives ranging from performances, to exhibitions, lectures and various other public events.
In Fall 2017, Alserkal Avenue will launch the first Artists’ Residency on the Avenue, further enhancing the organisation’s commitment to cultivating artistic talent. Located in Alserkal Avenue, Alserkal Residency will run three cycles over the course of the year and is open to emerging and mid-career artists with an emphasis on socially engaged and research based practices, in addition to curators, writers and researchers working in related disciplines.
At the intersection of art, culture and commerce, Alserkal Avenue is more than just a neighbourhood, it is the driving force that brings the community of Dubai together to support and encourage a creative economy.
Visit. www.alserkalavenue.ae / Facebook, Twitter, Instagram: #AlserkalAvenue, @Alserkal Avenue
About IBM
For more information about IBM, please visit http://www.ibm.com
About Splash
Headquartered in Dubai, Splash is Middle East’s largest fast fashion retailer and part of the Landmark Group, one of the biggest retail conglomerates in the Middle East, India and Africa. Founded in 1993 as a single brand store in Sharjah, Splash currently operates over 220 stores and 55 brand stores (Lee Cooper, Bossini, Kappa etc) across 13 countries.
Showcasing popular collections for men, women and teens, Splash’s existing product portfolio includes a uni-brand concept across its stores providing a comfortable and easy shopping environment. Alongside, the brand also houses a gamut of international brands under its portfolio like Lee Cooper, Bossini, ELLE and Being Human among others.
Splash has also announced international icons Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif as brand ambassadors in the Middle East while celebrating fashion in its true sense with its tagline 'In Love with Fashion'.
As a brand Splash believes in constantly being a trend-setter in the region and has successfully created some of the biggest and most popular brand properties/events like the bi-annual fashion shows, the annual Calendar launches which have now become part of the social calendar of the Region. With constant revamping of the marketing portfolio, newer forms of communication are added and channeled to keep the consumer involved. Splash was awarded as a great place to work in 2017 in UAE & KSA and over the years, Splash has received several significant industry accolades that include being awarded ‘Powerbrand’ status for 2013. Splash has also won the Dubai Lynx Awards in the Design category for the Splash 2014 calendar.
A winner of several marketing awards of great significance, Splash has also won the Most Admired Marketing Campaign at the Retail ME Awards 2011 along with the Most Admired Retailer award.
Available in the UAE, the Splash collection is now online at http://www.splashfashions.com
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