As we hurtle into 2011 it’s time to fill our diaries with events and conferences to attend throughout the year.
Richard Seymour, co-founder of SeymourPowell will be speaking to the masses at the Product Design + Innovation event in May
If you are working within a product design consultancy or as part of an in-house design team one event that may particularly tickle your fancy is Product Design + Innovation.
Taking place for two days from 18 to 19 May 2011 this launch conference is aiming to bring the industrial design community together in the ExCel Centre, London, to discuss and debate the issues affecting the industry today. Topics up for discussion include open innovation, sustainability, design strategy, intellectual property, materials development and technology transfer.
The organisers have also managed to nab some pretty impressive speakers for the conference including, amongst others, Jonathan Hague, vice president of open innovation at Unilever Research and Development; Henrik Otto, senior vice president Global Design at Electrolux; Richard Seymour (above), co-founder of SeymourPowell, Clive Grinyer, director of customer service at Cisco IBSG; and Peter Cooke, design lead at British Airways.
The conference is chaired by Kevin McCullagh, director of Plan Strategic, who has this to say: “How often do product designers get the chance to meet, take stock of recent developments and debate the way forward? Not often enough, particularly right now.
Conference chair Kevin McCullagh
“A post-recession world is taking shape, in which emerging economies no longer believe that the ways of West are best and Britain’s government talks about ‘rebalancing’ the economy toward manufacturing.
However, manufacturers today usually rely on value chains that stretch to the East – and most offer services alongside the products they make.
“These and other shifts present real opportunities for product designers, and this conference and its great line up of speakers, offers a great chance to debate and explore different ways of seizing them.”
Being the conference’s media partner, Develop3D will be there in all its glory. Personally, I will be milling around for both days so drop me an {encode=”tanya@x3dmedia.com” title=”email”} if you are planning to attend.
Delegates attending Product Design + Innovation will also have free access to the co-located Plastics Design and Moulding conference and exhibition, which has moved down south after being in Telford for five years.
Visit the official website www.pdesigni.com for details on the early bird registration fee – available before 18 March. The website also includes a full programme as well as product design news, blogs and speaker biographies.
