Graduates Present Solutions for a Better World at Dubai Design Week

150+ graduates will gather from 43 countries at this year's edition

Posted on

23 October 2019

Global Grad Show at Dubai Design Week 2019

Global Grad Show, the world's largest and most diverse gathering of universities, will return to Dubai.

Happening from November 12 - 16, the show will partner with the Investment Corporation of Dubai for the 2nd time in for its 5th edition.

This year, the show received applications from over 200 universities - which is double the number for 2018!

Free and open to the public during Dubai Design Week, Global Grad Show is the only exhibition of its kind, showcasing graduate projects from over 100 universities from 43 countries, in the fields of design, science, technology, and engineering.

The 2019 edition will be held in an expanded exhibition space, as this year's edition will house the largest and most diverse gathering of universities, including established names such as The University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University and Goldsmiths, alongside new entrants from Philippines, Colombia, and Kuwait.

Global Grad Show will feature 150 projects from a range of backgrounds, showcasing innovations from universities in emerging markets, including Chile, Uganda, Egypt, Pakistan, and Thailand, next to the work of students from global institutions such as Harvard, Stanford and Imperial College. From the UAE, leading regional institutions such as Zayed University and NYU Abu Dhabi will present advanced solutions for problems ranging from aging populations to food security.

HE Mohammed I. Al Shaibani, Executive Director and CEO of Investment Corporation of Dubai commented: “For the past year, the Investment Corporation of Dubai has supported Global Grad Show in growing the reach, diversity, and latitude of its programme. More young innovators across the world have now the opportunity to showcase and develop solutions for the society and environment” and he added, “the renewed partnership is ratification of Dubai’s commitment to building a better and sustainable future for all, leveraging the city’s position as a global innovation and entrepreneurship hub”.

Innovating for social impact

Global Grad Show will present a conference for industry professionals and academics, promoting knowledge exchange between institutions, titled the “Innovating for Social Impact” on Monday, 11 November. The conference will explore how universities can be catalysts for sustainable development across the world. Drawing from the experience of professors, graduates, entrepreneurs and stakeholders, it will shed light on the learnings from initiatives that use sustainable innovation in the fields of technology, architecture and design. The conference will be curated by Community Jameel.

New for 2019

A new initiative in 2019 is an Entrepreneurship Programme, which supports graduate projects through their next steps, up to market launch. The first phase of the programme is an online training, which covers the fundamentals of business-thinking and setting up a social startup. Next, up to 20 projects will be selected to attend a boot camp in Dubai, to fine-tune their startup concepts and pitching skills.

In the final stage, participants will be introduced to accelerators and UAE-based stakeholders from the entrepreneurship field, to explore collaboration opportunities. The goal of the programme is to offer Global Grad Show projects the opportunity to be further developed while attracting young innovation talent around the world to Dubai’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Pictured: Eleanor Watson, Curator of the Global Grad Show 2019

Projects to watch out for

The projects for Global Grad Show are selected based on how they respond to a range of criteria, including how they respond to the four tenets of the exhibition; Innovation, Impact, Equality, and Exchange. The students will be in Dubai throughout the week and will bring prototypes, films and original research material for visitors to engage and interact with.

Eleanor Watson, Curator of the Global Grad Show 2019 said “Global Grad Show is a coming together of the brightest young minds in the design industry, showcasing projects from over 100 schools this year. The curatorial approach of this year aims to show the connections between different spheres of human existence; as visitors walk through the exhibition, they will experience projects related to the human first, moving on to the home and community and finally the city, and planet. Our hope is that it will inspire others to think critically about how they live while inspiring all of us to act consciously.”

Some of the identified themes within the system of spheres are health, wealth & disparity, gender & equality, sustainability, education, and technology. Included below are comments from the curator, Eleanor Watson.

Pictured: Insulata by Fergus Vaux, Nottingham Trent University

HEALTHCARE
“Global access to healthcare is an important theme in this year’s edition of Global Grad Show, as young designers find innovative ways of delivering care and treatment in the most challenging situations. Projects under this tenet present potential exciting advancements in the field.”

Excelscope 2.0 – Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands: A smart tool for diagnosing Malaria in rural sub Saharan Africa, designed to reduce workload and increase accuracy, decreasing the cost of diagnosis.
Insulata – Nottingham Trent University, UK: A thermally regulating cocoon, designed for premature babies born in low-income areas or developing countries.
Swiv – University of Pennsylvania, USA: A toothbrush for children with cognitive disabilities who struggle with the tasks of daily living, allowing them to clean their teeth with a single physical motion.

WEALTH & DISPARITY
“With wealth disparity remaining a pressing issue throughout the world, graduates are developing ways to ensure that underserved communities are acknowledged and empowered, making sure nobody is left behind in the age of automation.”

Epitent – Makerere University, Uganda: Inspired by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, a portable habitation solution for humanitarian emergencies was created.
Hubvance – Politecnico Di Torino and College des Ingenieurs, Italy: An all-in-one container for communities with low resources, that produces energy from solar panels, and panels that condense humidity for air into water.
Zambeel – University of Karachi, Pakistan: A two way carry bag that provides relief for the workers form rural areas who migrate to the city and send all of their income home, enabling them to securely carry their possessions and sleep at night.

Pictured: EpiTent by Grace Nakibaala, Makere University

GENDER & EQUALITY
“Many of the projects in this section are designed to enhance women’s safety, wellbeing and health. Such projects are female-led, helping us all to understand the intricacies of design.”

CAMSY – Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland: Women have a 50% higher chance of getting a false heart diagnosis because their symptoms are different from those of men. CAMSY is a wearable monitoring system designed to constantly check and register of irregularities to the cardiac values of the patient.

Hale – The American University in Cairo, Egypt: Hospital gowns with self-aid and sensor features to aid a less intrusive form of health monitoring.

Masectomy Caregiver – Design Academy, The Netherlands: Adaptive and protective knitwear for women who have experienced a mastectomy, which places a protective shell around mastectomy scars where space and comfort is needed.

SUSTAINABILITY
“As the climate crisis becomes an unavoidable part of our daily lives, designers are facing the difficult task of addressing issues around global systems of production and consumption. Young people are working to find ways to make better use of our resources in a creative way.”

Blue Gas – UCL Berlett School of Architecture, UK: A grass roots solution for an affordable transition to production, storage and clean cooking using biogas and locally sourced organic materials that connect in an easily replicable and constructible system.

Organico – University of the Arts Berlin, Germany: A biodegradable lightweight compressed material intended for furniture making, which can be manufactured with little ecological footprint.

Impacto - Collège des Ingénieurs, Italy: An online platform that encourages people to live more sustainably by using a reliable algorithm that calculates your positive environmental impact by reducing plastic consumption in your life.

Pictured: CAMSY - a Cardiac Monitoring System by Silvana Clavuot, Zurcher Hochschule der Kunste

EDUCATION
“With a keen understanding that knowledge offers both opportunity and agency, young designers are developing tools to promote better education for all.”

Class is over – Hunan University, China: An educational board game designed to teach children about basic health and safety to avoid accidental injuries.

Designing Tactile Schematics – New York University, USA: A set of design standards developed to make electronics and DIY projects more accessible for the visually impaired.

Water Scale - Louis Bruno Bindernagel, University of the Arts Berlin, Germany: A digital scale displays the amount of water used in the production of our groceries thereby enabling us to make our own fact-based decisions on consumption.

TECHNOLOGY
“As technology continues to develop at its own dizzying pace, graduates are leading conversations around the development and use of these powerful new tools. These graduate projects raise questions around how the development of new technologies will play out in the future and how they can bring a positive change.”

Roblox – UCL - Bartlett School of Architecture, UK: Modular construction system which allows the creation and reconfiguration of a large variety of structures of multiple scales.

Jarvis - University of Pennsylvania, USA: A mixed reality headset, enabling doctors to accurately measure the brain’s response to distractions or activities when conducting cognitive tests for severe head trauma, pharmaceutical efficacy and ADHD.

Mi Data – Royal College of Art and Imperial College London, UK: A gateway for users to view the type of raw data they are sharing as well as their derived data psychographics by augmenting the experience in personal data transparency.

Ro-Biotics – Royal College of Art and Imperial College London: A microscopic robot created from 4D printed materials to be ingested in the place of an antibiotic, which captures infections in the bloodstream.