Lumen: Reimagining Immersion

A global study showed that the number of people in the UK dying before they reach 75 was worryingly high (the UK ranked 12th of 19 EU countries). Equally, levels of early death varied hugely between the regions of England, demonstrating that where we live can impact how long we live. The Secretary of State for Health made tackling premature mortality a key priority. He issued a call to action, vowing to save 30,000 lives in 7 years. He commissioned Public Health England to make the relevant data transparent and available to all. The goal was to generate debate and awareness of the issue across multiple audiences whilst inspiring intervention from local government to build healthier populations. This gave rise to Longer Lives, a new website providing the information and insight needed to facilitate better health and reduce premature mortality. The team, a partnership between Public Health England (PHE) and SapientNitro, delivered a compelling solution in a matter of weeks.

People are increasingly interested in sustainable lifestyles and urban community gardening to grow their own food, but the challenges in maintaining these spaces include the limited time and skills for beginning gardeners, and the lack of organization to coordinate community gardening efforts. There are many advances in computer vision and AI technologies that can be used in agriculture. We see an opportunity for AI technologies to solve problems facing framers such as climate change, yield-reducing pests and weed infestations, and to speculate on autonomous systems that can help urban farmers manage and care for their gardens. In collaboration between communication design and industrial design students, GardenSpace and Eden were proposed as conceptual solutions to this problem.

Out of the 39 million blind people around the world, only 10% know how to read/write in braille. Even those who know braille cannot understand the shapes of many objects around them. Through Fittle, we are trying to make visually challenged children learn braille letters, spellings of words, and shapes/forms of the objects that these words represent—all at the same time, engaging them through a puzzle.

We Remember invites visitors to tell their 9/11 stories as part of the permanent collection of the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Visitors to the site enter a sound-proof booth, locate themselves on a world map and record and contribute their stories for use in the introductory exhibition of the permanent museum opening in 2012. These stories are also used to make the Explore 9/11 iPhone application, a mobile guide that features a seven stop walking tour of the area around the World Trade Center, accompanied by audio and photo narration, as well as an augmented reality mode in which photos from the site overlay the phone’s current camera view.

The idea of Stic Stac Code blocks was born when I realised that most of the augmented reality (AR) based mobile applications out there let children only consume digital content. These apps impress you with polished 3D models, textures and animations, but they lack cultivating creativity amongst its users. Creativity lies in the power of Making and Tinkering and I believe a better part of technology should be designed to foster learning. Thus the question was – How might I design a creative tool that let children manipulate, create and express their unique content?

Of late, one of the biggest issues that India, the second most populous country of the world, is facing is of women safety. The country’s capital, New Delhi, has recently reported a high number of rape cases against women. Protests from citizens have lead to higher vigilance from the police to prevent such cases in the future.

Expressive Wearable explores clothing as a communication tool. This project imagines a scenario in which clothing expresses the wearer’s attitude directly without the concern of adhering to social conventions.

Nest thermostat users were invited to take part in an initiative that would champion clean energy during a critical moment – when the path of the eclipse would darken over 100 million solar panels, creating a temporary dip in the clean energy supply. And they were invited to participate directly from the screen of their Nest thermostat. They tapped “Count me in” to opt-in right from there, as well. Their thermostat got to work pre-cooling their homes in advance. Nest thermostats have long been heralded for their innovation, on this day they were also able to make championing clean energy, a simple and easy choice.

When developing SquareTalk, our goal was to explore ways that we could use tacit technologies to foster a sense of connectedness between strangers at large-scale festival events.

BlindMaps – An open initiative for independent mobility.We are building a low-cost navigation system for the blind and visually impaired so that everyone can have the freedom of independently exploring and navigating in an urban environment.