Orange Romania, in partnership with the Romanian design store Dizainăr, launches the second edition of the Smart Design Challenge. The competition challenges young designers to find creative solutions and design a product, both functional and aesthetic, but with the main goal of incorporating new smart technologies.
Part of the Tech a Break platform launched in 2017, through which Orange supports entrepreneurship in the creative and technical industries, Smart Design Challenge aims to create and identify smart products that combine the use of technology with a creative and courageous vision in terms of design.
The theme of the second edition is “Daily routine”, and the products designed by the candidates must fall into the categories of home & deco or accessories.
The Smart Design Challenge takes place nationwide, in two stages, between October 8, 2018 – March 27, 2019. The first stage includes the registration of projects in the contest and the selection by the jury of finalist projects, and the second – the realization of prototypes to the finalists, their display in the Orange smart shop stores and the designation of the winners by the jury.
DZNR Team
Project Management: Mihnea Ghilduș
Graphic Design: Raul Cadar, Magda Traciu
Communication: Gabriela Tîrlie
Photo & Video: Mihai Georgiadi
During the Awards ceremony, the best project was designated “Dial Shakers”, the set of pepper and salt shakers inspired by audio equipment, which offers an elegant alternative to interruptions at the table in a way pleasant to adjust the light intensity or volume of music remotely. The team formed by Roman Naghirneac (industrial designer) and Andrian Jurat (electronics engineer) won the grand prize worth 5,000 Euro offered by Orange Romania.
The competition jury also awarded 3 special mentions for three projects that impressed by concept, form or execution: Milena Kesaeva for the project “Smart table ROS”, Florin Gheorghe for “Smart Cloud”, Florin Cobuz and Adrian Enache for the project “TiKA – design intelligent modular ”. Everyone who watched the Smart Design Challenge had the chance to vote for their favorite projects. Thus, the award for popularity went to the “Pic-Pot” project made by Maria Iulia Barbu, Diana Petcușin, Cristian Garoiu, Alexandru Daniel. All four projects won a Samsung Galaxy Note 9 smartphone from Samsung Romania.