The 23^rd International Conference of the Society for Medical Innovation and Technology (SMIT), chaired by the innovative surgeon Amir Szold invited a keynote on Design Thinking and how to work with designers. The talk by Daniel Charny reviewed the development of the profession of industrial design as a strategic practice suggesting to the inventors, engineers and medical innovation leaders to integrate design and designers from the very early stages of their projects. The talk also presented recent ground breaking work from the Helen Hamlyn Design Centre.

Four more projects by Design Products students from the group working with Roberto Feo and Daniel Charny include: QR U? a project about exploring and controlling online identity by Thorunn Arnadottir ; Fast assembly studio furniture bracket system by Thomas Hatfield; From Here For Here local materials for local product, pencil making mini factory for the Royal College of Art students by Ariane Prin and Lightweight trestles and heavyweight coat-hangers by Benjamin Whistle (Images on their way).

First round of trials for the live online masterclasses completed, learnt much and lots to look forward to. The first round of masters to brave the new format included: Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh/Sugru , Simon Waterfall/Fray , Conny Freyer/Troika , Asa Bruno/Ron Arad Architects. We are working on the next set of classes that will be available for the autumn season.

Konstfack university college of arts, crafts and design is reflecting on locality in a global design and art world. Daniel Charny will be among a group of panelists invited by Ivar Björkman, President of Konstfack since 2003 to take part in a public round table discussion about the role of geographical location in art, craft and design. It’s a pertinent question for design and art education especially in these times when there is increasing pressure by governing bodies and students alike to demonstrate value. Among the panelists are: Liesbeth den Besten, Dan Fern, Søren Grammel, Davide Quadrio, LouiseSchouwenberg, Annika von Taube and Marco Velardi.

This year Roberto Feo and Daniel Charny set Platform 10′s underlying theme as The BookClub. After reading excerpts from: Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut; The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore; Writings by Vilém Flusser; Myths of the Near Future by J.G. Ballard; Species of Spaces and other stories by George Perec; Ubik by Philip K Dick; Cultural Resistance (Editor Michel Ducombe) by Ricardo Dominguez; Password by Jean Baudrillard; and in particular Losing Blue by Haruki Murakami and The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, the first and second year MA students embarked on a project called “A future of…” and so far some exciting ideas looking into the future of self diagnostics, makers guilds, insomnia and lighting in public spaces to name a few.(images by Roberto Feo from the start of year presentation)

A two days workshop led Daniel Charny and Tord Boontje of the Royal College of Art provided an opportunity for participants to work intensively on design processes. This one off workshop was part of the events and education programme around Ron Arad’s exhibition Restless at the Barbican.