Greetings from Singapore. I'm back from an adventurous trip to collect the Best of the Best Red Dot design concept  award for Nokia's Morph. 
                                             

I posted an entry on the Morph earlier this year when it was announced., and have also had the Morph picture at the top of this blog for some time. The Morph is one of two public concepts that I initiated and drove from Nokia Research Center last year (the other one was Eco Sensor Concept which should also have an entry in this blog somewhere...)  The designers and scientists did such an amazing job on the Morph that from 1906 entries to the Red Dot design concept award it was chosen as one of the 21 'Best of the Best'.

The Red Dot is one of world's two renown design competitions, so naturally the design team was truly excited about the award. The research team continues to  study Morph further, going deeper into the possibilities of nanoscience and nanotechnology. This award also recognises the demand for research on new materials, sensors and radical new ways to build electronics. Congratulations to the whole Morph team!

I also had a chance to meet with some bloggers from Singapore which was really nice. First, D.T from Design Sojourn. D.T. specialises in design, especially in design strategies. He dares to ask difficult questions like does design matter in Asia, and how can you calculate profitability of desing. Very refreshing reading. The other new acquantance I met was Nicholas Khoo a.k.a  Geeconomic who also features in Asia's CNET. Together with his colleague from CNET, they were doing a liveblog from the award ceremony but unfortunately I'm not geek enough that I would be able to find it...

The award ceremony itself started around 7.30 and lasted for nearly two hours. First on stage was called the "winners". There were 170 of winners, although I'm not sure that all of them were present to pick up their award. The most clever concepts- imho - were a sea-through iron called B-Iron 725, dancing shoes for hard-of-hearing people called Music-toucher, a child's stroller that transforms into a tricycle and bicycle called Bikky, solar cell outdoor induction cooker called Sun Flower Range, and recycling bath sink that collects unused water, Braille polaroid camera, and Taker - a wheelbarrow and a shovel combined. There were also many smart solutions in the Green and Life-science categories, my two favourites for saving the world and helping people with disabilities. Please go and check them out from www.red-dot.de.

Now, I come back to the same question that keeps haunting me regularly. How can we turn these wonderful concepts into products that people can use and enjoy? Who should be responsible for turning innovations into consumer products? Companies, universities, governments... This is probably a hot topic and an eternal topic of dispute in many countries. I can confirm that this is the case in Finland. My hope is that all of these would take new research and design very seriously and include some calculating risk in their portfolios in order to get new ideas out of the labs and into the hands of people.