Report on the IAUD International Design Award 2023    Awards Ceremony and Presentation

The projected screen during the ceremony: the certificate of the Grand Award

The IAUD International Design Award 2023 Awards Ceremony and Presentation was successfully held online on February 20th, 2024 Tuesday.
It received appx.200 participants from 15 countries and as information accessibility, simultaneous interpretation (Japanese / English) and Japanese captioning service (automatic translation for other languages) were delivered.

The IAUD International Design Award was established in 2010 in order to promote and champion UD by recognizing and rewarding outstanding achievements and in particular products that ensure people of all ages and abilities can enjoy an active, independent and productive life. The number of the applications from various fields has been increasing every time and those applications are from various countries. The awards ceremony was held in Munich, Germany in 2017 and in Bangkok, Thailand in 2018 although it was held online last 4 years.

There were 44 entries from 8 countries (Canada, China, Israel, Japan, Korea, Thailand, UK and USA). Carrying out strictly neutral examinations, the IAUD International Design Award 2023 Selection Committee selected 1 winner of the “Grand Awards”, 12 winners of the “Gold Awards”, 9 winners of the “Silver Awards”, 10 winners of the “Bronze Awards”, 1 winner of the “Best Student Design Challenge Award” and 1 winner of the “Student Design Challenge Award” were selected.

At the ceremony, all the winners were announced in order from the Grand Awards by Mr. Keiji Kawahara, the member of the Selection Committee / IAUD Executive Director.
Mr. Satoshi Kose, IAUD Chairman of the Board of Directors and Ms. Onny Eikhaug, Chair of the Selection Committee/Executive Board, EIDD Design for All Europe, Norway, presented the award certificates to the award winners.

Afterwards, the IAUD International Design Award 2023 Jury Panel, which is made up of UD experts from 7 countries around the world, gave their comments.
First of all, Ms. Onny Eikhaug offered a critique: “This year’s award winners do exactly that, with fine examples of how design and innovation can make a crucial difference, not just in terms of the products in our homes and the services and buildings we use on a daily basis, but across so many sectors of our society. A key feature of 2023 was the range and variation of the successful candidates, from small and micro local initiatives, government driven solutions, entrepreneurial start-ups, commercial brands to medical innovations; aiming to change for the better. Collectively they reinforce the fact that UD and Inclusive Design are powerful drivers for innovation, not just for special needs provision, but across every field of mainstream design.”

Moreover Mr. Masuda Co-chair of the Selection Committee, commented: “The grand award winner, Gathering Place for Tulsa was not only highly praised for its large-scale regional planning and detailed design, but also received special recognition for being the site of a tragedy that once created racial discrimination. While I look forward to the possibility that UD has such social and political meaning, I was also reminded of the need to consider objectivity and universality.”

Then, other members of the Selection Committee also commented and celebrated the winners. The jury members are as follows;

From left:
Mr. Thomas Bade (Founder & Partner, Institute for Universal Design, Germany)
Mr. Rama Gheerawo (Director, Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art, UK)
Mr. Francesc Aragall (President, Design for All Foundation: Spain)
Ms. Antika Sawadsri (Dean, School of Architecture, Art, and Design, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Thailand)
Ms. Valerie Fletcher (Executive Director, Institute for Human-Centered Design: USA)

After the citations, all the Grand Awards winners, Gold Awards winners and Award of Excellence for Student Design Challenge winner gave their presentations remotely. Their presentations were very informative and wonderful.

In particular, the presentation by Ms. Yuna Goto, who won the Award of Excellence for Student Design Challenge, left the participants very impressed with the innovative ideas of elementary school students.

In the end, Online Get-together was taken place among the all participants. We shared valuable time.

IAUD will hold the “IAUD International Design Award 2024” this year. The application guidelines will be posted on the IAUD official website in the near future. We look forward to receiving your applications.

Please visit IAUD website for the details;
Announcement of Award Winners
Full Citations