You may remember that some time ago I mentioned that @Susa and I ( @Nadia ) had dreamt up a new product design course format for product design students at UDK, one of the better design and art universities in Germany. It’s called Hacking Utopia- #OpenCare for social and demographic change and was born out of our shared experiences as designers.
More specifically the frustration with outdated design education that ill prepares students to be able to do meaningful work with their skills and talents. We feel that this should start already during their education so by the time they have graduated they are already up and running their own exciting projects that really contribute towards tackling some of the bigger challenges which affect us all. After a lot of work over the past couple of months, especially by Susa, the partnership agreement between Edgeryders and UDK was finalised and last week we launched the first ever edition of this course with a four-day intense workshop.
Over the next six months each student will be working on design research and product development process that departs from the OpenCare topic and methodologies. They will be doing it in synch with the phases of the larger OpenCare research project. The course participants’ documentation and individual reflections from each day are uploaded in the Op3nCare Community Homebase where you are very welcome to leave comments helping them develop their thinking and projects. Or better yet: follow the course and take on the tasks yourself! it’s a fun way to unleash some of your creative urges while maybe picking up some new skills…and contributing to the common good 
You may even be eligible for the new fellowship program we are building!
Why do this? You get to see the OpenCare topic and challenges from many different perspectives and help shape the students research and product development work so they really are contributing to the Opencare research project. For the students getting feedback from you is an unparalleled way to discover new knowledge and broaden their horizons about what is happening in the fields relevant to all our work.
The results of the students work will be exhibited in Berlin at Designtransfer UDK and it looks like some of them might run crowdfunding campaigns on StartNext.
Opening: Wednesday, 20 July, 19.00
Exhibition: 21 July– 24 July, 10.00–18.00
Address: Designtransfer UdK, Einsteinufer 43-53, 10587 Berlin
Concept: GastProf. Susanne Stauch/ID2 & Nadia EL-Imam/Edgeryders
Team: GastProf Dr. Martin Kiel/GWK, Prof. Jozef Legrand, KM Sarah-Lena Walf, KM Johanna Dehio, Valentina Karga, Svenja Bickert-Appleby, Ludwig Kannicht, Laura Straßer, Björn Weigelt
Date: 2016-07-20 19:00:00 - 2016-07-24 18:00:00, Europe/Brussels Time.