Dubbed “the region’s largest creative festival”, the fifth edition of Dubai Design Week took place in the city earlier last month. Free and open to the public, the six-day creative festival covered a range of different disciplines such as architecture, graphic design and multimedia. Serving as a platform to spotlight emerging global talent, festival activities included exhibitions, installations, competitions and workshops. But, there was one attraction that continues to garner the most attention – the Global Grad Show.
The Global Grad Show showcases graduate projects from over 100 universities around the world and covers a variety of themes including wealth, disparity, gender and equality and education.
“Our hope is that it will inspire others to think critically about how they live, while inspiring all of us to act consciously,” said Eleanor Watson, a curator for the show.
Each project takes a creative and innovative lens into the future of our world, highlighting the most thought-provoking designs and concepts. This year, some of the most innovative ideas were for the healthcare industry. Below are a handful of highlights:
Ro-Biotics – 4D-printed nano-scale robots that are implanted into a patient’s bloodstream to combat resistant bacteria.
Hale – a “smart” hospital gown fitted with sensors that can monitor temperature, blood pressure and oxygen, which can be transmitted through a smartphone app.
Insulata – a portable carrier lined with reflective material that regulates temperature to prevent babies with low birth weight from becoming too hot or too cold.
Introspect – a guided mobile app for nurses to help them improve their ability to cope with personal and emotional challenges that could lead to burnout and compassion fatigue.
HI-LO – a gamified application that teaches children how to manage their own food consumption, blood glucose levels and exercise routine to mitigate their risk for diabetes.
CAMSY – a wearable monitoring system for women who have suffered a heart attack that can monitor cardiac values and provide the user with feedback.
Why This Matters –
If the show was any indication, the future talent of our industry is bright and full of next-level thinking. They’re going outside of the box to ideate new opportunities that challenge the status quo. As we look to the years ahead, future innovators, like the ones featured in Dubai, will serve as the disruption our industry needs to keep pace with the changing expectations and priorities of the world around us.
In the meantime, using these kinds of futuristic ideas as the foundation for forward-thinking opportunities can elevate your brainstorm from the average, half-hung Post-It note to something that actually sticks and makes a difference.
