Camp kick-off

And with only two weeks to embark on one of the greatest design journeys of their lives, the 29 students from international universities along with around as many students from Design School Kolding gathered early Monday morning to a full day of briefing and workshops and meeting their partner companies. The 11 companies will work with the students on the issue of seniors and the quality of life and the design students will develop concrete welfare prototypes. The students come from all over the world, and for the first time Brazil, Australia and Italy are also represented.

Elena Maragoni studies service design at Politecnico di Milano in Italy. She is very much looking forward to the camp:

- I work with design for children and I see a lot of overlaps with this and the theme of the camp in regards to social innovation and designing for people with special needs.

Industrial Design student Omayra Maymo from Madrid in Spain is doing her Master at Design School Kolding. She signed up for the camp because she is very interested in welfare design and because the camp offers interdisciplinary work.

- I look forward to working dynamically and across disciplines with people from all over the world. I believe you get the best results this way because otherwise you get stuck in your own way of working.

The Camp focuses on helping businesses move into the welfare industry using the same competences, services or technologies, which are already used to run the company and so successfully combine the skills and know-how of one field with the needs of another. The concept is called “sidestepping” and the outcome: Innovative solutions, new possibilities, bigger revenues.

Presentation & Exhibition
The students present their concept ideas on Friday 10 October. The Presentation, which is also an exhibition of the student projects, is followed by a Pilot Workshop facilitated by design consultants. The objective of the Pilot Workshop is to allow companies and students to work together to identify and address possibilities and challenges of implementing the concepts in real life.

Partner companies
Pettinaroli, Pay4it, KMD, Quilts of Denmark, Schneider Electric, Frøslev Træ, &Hype, Mungo Park Kolding, Neets, Scandic Hotels and Zebicon