The Helen Hamlyn Centre
for Design partnered with long-term collaborators, the Hong Kong Design Centre
and the conference received major support from CreateHK.
Include 2017
brought together the international design community to discuss and debate tough
issues that face today’s global society, and provided a discourse on how these
challenges could be tackled through people-centred design methodologies and the
harnessing of new and emerging technologies.
The conference,
attended by over 700 delegates from around
the world, was spread across three keynote sessions, six designer-led
workshops, a Leadership CEO Forum, and Roundtable discussion. The key themes
that ran throughout the conference were Living, Connecting, and Moving.
Living:
The opening session, included a keynote from Astrid Nøklebye Heiberg, the 81
year-old Senior Political Advisor for the Conservative Party, Norway and
focused on the universal challenges of ageing and health. Concepts of ‘ageing
differently’ and ‘living well’ were explored and probed. The speakers addressed the rising phenomena
of how older people’s expectations, lifestyles, and aspirations were not being
met by many businesses and service providers, and how healthcare provision for
the ageing population often failed to deliver to an increasingly savvy, and
health-conscious consumer.
Connecting:
Practitioners and advocates from the emerging and impactful fields of
Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality navigated the audience through the
startling potential of this terrain, and speculated how the new and
revolutionary ‘social-digital’ realm may go on to influence people’s everyday
lives and the environments they live and work in. The utilisation and power of
design was highlighted as an invaluable ‘bridge’ between the tech entrepreneurs
and how their virtual innovations can be transferred to improving ‘real life’.
Moving: This multifaceted and investigative
forum explored modern and near-future transport provision – which is
increasingly at the heart of urban life. The steady advance in technology,
connectivity, and the perceived encroachment of autonomous vehicles, have transformed
perceptions of society towards mobility solutions, often reflecting people’s
desires, aspirations and fears.
See video by the Hong Kong Design Centre of the conference
