37 students have started studying in the European Design Upgrade project, the three best developments of which will be presented at Dutch Design Week
16 June, 2020
On June 15, 2020, training began at the international program European Design Upgrade (EDU). The organizers selected 37 students from more than 100 applicants. The three best developments of the participants of the program to create unique design concepts will be presented in the fall at the Dutch Design Week.
The project was launched under the Creative Europe program (funded by the European Commission). It is implemented by the Vasyl Khmelnytsky foundation K.Fund, the non-governmental organization GoLocal and partner companies — Brussels Creative from Belgium and Urban Mill from Finland. The opening meeting of the participants took place on the territory of the innovation park UNIT.City.
Dominique Piotet, CEO of UNIT.City, greeted the EDU participants and shared his experience working with designers while working in San Francisco.
“I`m glad to welcome you to the European Design Upgrade program, because I am sure that designers and the design environment are a real whirlpool of life. It doesn’t matter where you came from or what you did before. If you are here, then you are set to create something really exciting and valuable together. In the UNIT.City community, we believe that designers make a special effort to create important ideas and developments for the future. That is why I wish you success in the project and inspiration to create truly grandiose and important projects for everyday life,”
shared Dominique Piotet.
Vice President of K.Fund Olena Dobrorodneva presented to the participants the lecture program of the project, which will include 24 lectures from Ukrainian, Finnish and Belgian experts in the format of webinars and workshops from June 15 to July 31, 2020.
“Congratulations to the selected participants of the international project, who had the honor to represent Ukraine on the international design platform. We have gathered talented artists, creators and specialists from a variety of fields and we are sure we will be able to present extraordinary developments at the outstanding event of European design Dutch Design Week. We thank our partners and mentors for their cooperation and assistance in selecting the best designers for the expansion and development of the creative and cultural sectors,”
said Olena Dobrorodneva.
The students were greeted at the meeting by Alain Heureux, co-founder of Brussels Creative and Belgian partner of the European Design Upgrade project, and Kari Mikkela, co-founder of Urban Mill and Finnish partner of the European Design Upgrade project.
Mentors and experts of the program — in particular, the curator and organizer of exhibitions of Ukrainian design in Eindhoven and Milan Olena Oranska and teachers of the lecture program Olga Bogdanova, Kateryna Sokolova, Anastasia Mikova, Valentin Frechka, Dinara Kasko and Daria Tsapenko addressed the audience.
During the acquaintance, the participants of the program told about their own specializations and shared their expectations from the project. Among the students, among others, were specialists in the field of processing ocean and other plastics and creating art objects from them, designers of urban neighborhoods, clothing and interiors, artists of ceramics and covers for prosthetic legs and even cartoonists.
During the meeting, Olena Dobrorodneva presented the next stages of the project and held a Q&A session with program participants. In particular, students learned more about the stages of hackathons and prototyping of projects that will take place from August 1 to August 31 and from September 1 to October 15, respectively.
It is planned that the second and third stages of the program will take place offline at UNIT.City, in one of the largest Ukrainian laboratories of rapid prototyping and R&D — FabLab Fabricator, which students visited with a tour after the meeting.
