Innovation for All: Innovation, Equality and Employment

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear participants,

The Finnish architect and designer Eliel Saarinen once said:  ”Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.”

This conference widens the scope even further and points out that design should also be seen in a social context. Design is important for each and one of us, and for the social and economic sustainability of our society.

One of the important concerns of the Norwegian government is to preserve and develop the welfare state. A key issue to be addressed here is employment.

Like many countries in Europe, North America and Asia, Norway will experience a change in the population’s age distribution over the next decades.

There will be more senior citizens, and less young people to fill the jobs in both the public and private sectors.  We also know that a greater number of senior citizens will require an increased need for care workers.

How can we address these challenges?

First of all: The most obvious answer is that we need more people in the work force. We need to reduce the number of people who, for various reasons, stop working.
Secondly: We need to increase the number of people who can stay in work longer.

This we need to include the vast numbers of people with disabilities in the work force. Today, more than 90 000 people with disabilities without work want employment.

In short: We need a more inclusive working life, and one important instrument to achieve this is inclusive or universal design.

We have all experienced both inclusive design products and solutions in our daily life. This very day, I have visited websites with synthetic speech and the possibility to increase the size of the letters and the colour contrast.

On my way to this conference, a voice in the lift in my offices told me which floor the lift stopped at. The streets I crossed had lowered curb stones and I could see tactile maps of the Zebra Crossings on the traffic light pole as I was given the signal to cross the street.

Beside the green light I heard the “please cross” message from the other side of street.

We need more of this in all parts of society, and this conference has shown that this is just the beginning. We will most certainly experience a continuing stream of innovative inclusive design.

To achieve this we need the dedication and creativity of designers. Their perseverance may be challenged as may their need for sleep.   

The participants in the 24Hour Inclusive Design Challenge have taken on a task that requires all these qualities and more to present to us inclusive design solutions for tomorrow.
 
The aim of the design challenge is to engage designers with the inclusive design process and challenge them creatively so that they acquire new expertise that is both relevant and transferable to their working practice.

The Challenge is organized by the Norwegian Design Council in collaboration with the Royal College of Art Helen Hamlyn Centre in London.

The chief facilitator is Senior Research Fellow, Julia Cassim.  Michael Wollf, the co-founder of Wolff Olins, is the challenge’s patron.

The conference delegates have voted on the results in a special session, and the chief facilitator is now ready to reveal the name of the winners. Thus, I leave the word to you, Ms Cassim.

Thank you for your attention.