Products for the disabled win top prizes
At the Design Intelligence Awards (DIA) held last month in Hangzhou, the creators of two top-winning entries were each awarded 1 million yuan (US$140,563).
The DIA was launched in 2015 by the China Academy of Art to boost in China industrial design and foster talent.
The competition this year attracted 7,280 entries from around the world. The top 22 finalists covered a wide scope of product designs including a bionic arm, a cloud platform, an unmanned vehicle and a health status monitor. The designs are being exhibited at the China Design Museum through October 18.
“Improving the value of life is the core of the awards and the essence of the design industry,” said Xu Jiang, head of the China Academy of Art.
Top-prize winner Liu Dong, along with his company, designed a pair of visual-assisting glasses for blind people. The glasses weigh only 70 grams and sell for 1,698 yuan.
Joel Gibbard introduces his company’s bionic arm at the DIA.
Liu Dong wears a pair of visual-assisting glasses for blind people.
The company also developed a smart system for the glasses. The two make up an intelligent interaction platform that allows blind people to “read” and live like sighted people.
The glasses help blind people plan routes, with information read to them about directions, curbs, stairs and road obstacles along the way.
When a user arrives at a bus station, the glasses can “read” the characters at the bus stop and broadcast them. The device also remembers and recognizes commonly used routes.
Meanwhile, the glasses make it possible for visually impaired people to “read” books and newspapers. In case of emergency, users can press a button on the glasses, which will call for help from family and friends while also broadcasting their location via the smart system.
“At present, our product is the cheapest of its type on the market. In other countries, visual-assisting glasses are custom-tailored and cost at least thousands of US dollars, making them unaffordable to many people,” Liu said.
According to statistics released by the China Disabled Persons’ Federation in 2010, the country has more than 12.6 million visually impaired people.
“Most of them are illiterate due to a shortage of special schools for the blind. In Zhejiang, there are thousands of blind people, but only 500 of them can enter special schools. Their need for assisting tools is urgent,” Liu told Shanghai Daily.
Today, Liu’s products are mainly purchased by charity organizations and disabled persons’ federations across China. To date sales have already reached 26 million yuan.
The company’s smart system is listed as one of three “scientific disability-assisting projects” by the central government. As such, it will be applied in residential communities and public spaces to improve accessibility for the blind.
Liu’s company created its first generation of glasses in 2014. The awarded product is the ninth generation.
“We are cooperating with Zhejiang University in hopes of innovating more and more products for visually impaired people,” he added. “By the end of December, we will launch a special computer. It could make up for the shortage of educational resources, enhancing the literacy rate among this special group.”
The other DIA top-prize winner, “Hero Arm” from Open Bionics Co, is also geared toward people with disabilities.
Hero Arm is the world’s first medically certified 3D-printed bionic arm with multi-grip functionality. It is custom-built using 3D printing and scanning technologies.
It has special sensors which detect muscle movements. Users can effortlessly control a bionic hand with intuitive life like precision.
“It only costs one-fifth of comparative products, making it accessible to most people,” said Joel Gibbard, founder of the company.
The company is also working with Disney to develop a range of Hero Arm covers, starting with designs from the “Star Wars,” Marvel and “Frozen.”
Chen Muqin, spokeswomen for Ant Forest, makes a presentation about her company’s environmental protection project at the Design Intelligence Awards (DIA) in Hangzhou.
Engineered and manufactured in the UK, Hero Arm is available now in the US, the UK and France for below-elbow amputees aged 8 and above.
“This year, we started business in the United States. In the future we will enter the Chinese market. We focus on English-speaking countries in order to develop products and business faster, and then look forward to other fields,” Gibbard told Shanghai Daily.
The DIA also awarded an environmental protection project that aims to reverse desertification in China. Ant Forest is an initiative on the Alipay online payment platform, which has planted some 122 million trees in deserts since its launch in August 2016. Last month, it won a UN Champions of the Earth Award.
Its users are encouraged to record their low-carbon footprints through daily actions such as using public transportation or paying utility bills online. For each action, they receive “green energy” points. When they accumulate a certain number, an actual tree is planted.
“Our initiative has inspired more than 500 million people to plant trees and enjoy a green lifestyle. Users can view images of the trees in real-time via satellite. We also invite users to join our trips to forests in deserts, in a bid to attract more participants,” said Chen Muqin, spokeswomen for Ant Forest.
“In the future, Ant Forest is expected to work with more smart phone applications, spreading the low-carbon lifestyle concept.”
DIA winning designs exhibition
Date: Through October 18
Address: China Design Museum, 352 Xiangshan Rd
Admission: Free
