Report on the IAUD International Design Award 2024 Awards Ceremony and Presentation

The IAUD International Design Award 2024 Awards Ceremony and Presentation was successfully held online on February 28th, 2025. It received appx.180 participants from 14 countries and as information accessibility, simultaneous interpretation (Japanese/English) and automatic captioning service were delivered.

The certificate of the Grand Awards and award-winning entries

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.

There were 36 entries from 9 countries (Brazil, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, UK and USA). Carrying out strictly neutral examinations, the IAUD International Design Award 2024 Selection Committee selected 3 winners of the “Grand Awards”, 7 winners of the “Gold Awards”, 6 winners of the “Silver Awards”, 11 winners of the “Bronze Awards”, 1 winner of the “Award of Excellence for Student Design Challenge” 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 Chairperson of the Board of Directors and Ms. Onny Eikhaug, Chair of the Selection Committee / Founder, Innovation for All AS, Norway, presented the award certificates to the award winners.

Afterwards, the IAUD International Design Award 2024 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 there are some interesting developments I would like to mention. Design processes are often seen as intellectual property and so not openly shared. Two of the Grand Awards this year break with that idea, Panasonic perhaps more clearly than Okeenea, whose core business is accessibility, but both make a point of sharing what they have learnt over many years. This is great news, and importantly highlights universal and inclusive design as a marker of a company’s social commitment. In addition, newcomers of a few years ago are now coming back with new projects or new and improved developments of a previous one, while a more inclusive and focused application of AI technology is also appearing in areas such as in health care, ageing and education – not entirely unexpected but nevertheless most promising for the future.”

Moreover Mr. Fumikazu Masuda, Co-chair of the Selection Committee, commented: “What we can see through recent applications is that we should be pleased with the development of UD into new areas, such as communication activities for corporate activities, accessibility in community activities such as facilities and town planning, and other areas where values and interests are shared to improve the accuracy of sharing. However, we would also like to look at some more essential issues. How do we respond to US President Trump's critique of diversity, equity and inclusion? This is something we humans, not AI, must discuss and think about and find the answer."

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)
Mr. Keiji Kawahara(Professor Emeritus, Nagoya University of Arts and Sciences / Executive Director, IAUD, Japan)

After the citations, all the Grand Awards winners, Gold Awards winners gave their presentations remotely. Their presentations were very informative and wonderful.

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 2025” 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