The Grand Challenge 2020/21

Logitech

Logitech is a Swiss manufacturer of computer peripherals and software, and is working with the RCA and other partners to explore the future of human capability and performance.

Logitech’s CEO, Bracken Darrell, describes the company as ‘a "third-generation" design company, which sees design in every aspect of the company, changing everything constantly with the goal of improving the user’s experience’.

The RCA Grand Challenge 2020/21 was sponsored by Logitech. 

With contributors from: BBC, CERN, UNDP, Gallup, Unreal Engine, Resilience Shift, World Health Organisation (WHO), Lloyd’s Register Foundation (LRF), Elrha / Humanitarian Innovation Fund,  vHM Design Futures, Foresight Factory. 

The Covid-19 pandemic is one of the greatest safety design problems of our time. It has exposed major flaws in a wide range of our capabilities for dealing with human safety; ranging from political governance, confidence in communications, supply lines and business models to human resilience. 

The RCA Grand Challenge 2020/21: Design for Safety encouraged students to treat the pandemic as a specific, contemporary problem and find solutions to help us move forward and unlock potential and opportunities.

The teams worked under one of seven sub-themes of Design for Safety: Leadership, Care, Next Generation Interaction, Futures, Truth, Health and Resilience.

• In November 2020, 388 postgraduate designers across all disciplines in the School of Design were set the challenge of improving the practice, culture, principles and ethics of Design for Safety.
• Students worked in 77 interdisciplinary teams globally dispersed in 50 countries, and came together online to create a high-capacity, world-class design collective.
• Over a four-week period, the teams devoted around 64,000 hours (35.2 years) of creative capital to this challenge, working alongside over 20 academics in the ultimate design think-tank.

From 77 projects a shortlist was created reflecting the seven sub-themes: Leadership, Care, Next Generation Interaction, Futures, Truth, Health and Resilience.

These finalists had the opportunity to further develop their ideas, before presenting them to a panel of judges. Three prizes of £2,500 were awarded to the projects that best met the following criteria: ‘Is there magic?’, ‘Smartest Innovation’ and ‘Biggest potential impact’.

The winning projects were:

The Yellow Box

The Yellow Box is a unified, universal public mental health safety infrastructure which includes education, signage, behavioural nudges, digital experiences and crisis response. It provides a set of tools to deal with mental and emotional challenges that can be learnt as a child and put to use throughout life.

An additional prize of £1,000 for best narrative was also awarded to The Yellow Box.

Students: Alicia (Lissy) Hatfield (MA Textiles), Louise Skajem (MA/MSc Global Innovation Design), Cheng Chang (MA Design Products), Joe Pacal (MA/MSc Global Innovation Design), Swathi Muralidharan (MA Service Design).

MOWO

Through the combination of an app, female drivers and ticketing regulation MOWO aims to make buses a safer environment for women travelling to and from their jobs in Lima, Peru, where a high proportion of women experience sexual assault on public transport.

Students: Zhuyin Xu (MA Textiles), Kelly Holder (MA Intelligent Mobility), Georgia Mackenzie (MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering), Ilayda Kal (MA/MSc Global Innovation Design), Kaelan O'Neill (MA Fashion)

Inaya

Inaya introduces celebration as a fundamental part of care systems by integrating it into the medical journey of the patient. Through a not for profit or charity model, the multi-layered design solution incorporates celebration into care through a range of products and services.

Students: Suzanna James (MA Textiles), Célia Marchessaux (MA Design Products), Emre Kayganacı (MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering), Shruti Agerwala (MA Service Design), Justin Tsang (MA Intelligent Mobility)

With both parties noting clear streams of alignment in both their ethos and their strategic goals, Logitech have been working in partnership with the RCA since 2018 – including being a major donor to the College’s GenerationRCA campaign.

A number of RCA alumni work in Logitech’s design teams – including the company’s Chief Design Officer, Alastair Curtis. With the mutual goal of applying a high level of design thinking to the exploration of the future enhancement of human capability, RCA School of Design alumni worked directly with current students to really push the concept of this Grand Challenge to the extreme.