Dongguan City (China) - The Dongguan Cup International Industrial Design Awards 2009, an Icsid endorsed event held from 28-30 October 2009 at Dongguan City Science and Technology Museum, was deemed a great success. This annual international event, offering prize money of up to one million RMB each year since its first session in 2005, has drawn increasing international attention and wider participation over the years.

With the theme 'Experience, Creativity, Optimization (ECO-Design)', Dongguan Cup Awards 2009 was held by the hosts of Dongguan Municipality Government and China Industrial Design Association, with special sponsorship of Industrial Design Examination Department of Chinese Patent Office under State Intellectual Property Office of P.R.C. This year's Dongguan Cup Awards highlighted three features: international participation to open group, local enterprises participation to enterprise group, and successful business promotion of winner submissions.    

After six months of preparation, this year's Dongguan Awards all received 2372 submissions from students, academic staffs and designers from home and abroad. In the Open Group, the Organization Committee received 2214 submissions, 22 final shortlisted candidates gave their presentations to the jurors and 20 entries received the final prizes. In the Enterprise Group, the Organization Committee received 158 submissions, ranging from electronic information, toy, furniture, machinery, to medical equipment products design.

During the event, excellent design projects from the Dongguan Cup Awards 2009 were on display in the grand lobby of the Dongguan Science and Technology Museum. Divided into Open Group Section, Enterprise Group Section and Award Winning Project Section, the show exhibited 270 submissions.


Above: The design gallery

On 29 October 2009, the Dongguan Design Innovation Summit Forum was held at the Dongguan Science and Technology Museum. Leading experts assembled with an audience of 270 designers, entrepreneurs, students and teachers. The forum, on the topic of 'Design Innovation Leading Dongguan Industries Upgrading and Reconstruction', covered such pertinent issues as: the impact of design innovation on self-owned brand establishment, corporate growth, and product research and development. The Forum has been committed to work as a bridge for knowledge and technology breakthroughs within the market, and too promote design development and education.


Above: Summit forum

As another important step to further promote industrialisation and commercialisation of good design projects, the Signing Ceremony had 10 agreements signed between companies and winning entrants.
 

Above: Promotion partnership agreement signing ceremony and awarding ceremony

Following the Summit Forum, the Awarding Ceremony of Dongguan Cup Awards 2009 was held. Xiaoming Leng (Deputy Major of Dongguan Municipal People's Government), Shao Chen (Deputy Party Secretary of Guangdong Univ. of Technology), Yuepei He (Director of Dongguan Science and Technology Bureau), Lijuan Fang (Director of Industrial Design Examination Department of Chinese Patent Office under State Intellectual Property Office of P.R.C.), and other chairpersons of various government departments attended the awarding ceremony, presented awards to all wining entrants, and extended the warmest congratulations. The awarding ceremony was a delightful night and marked the perfect close to the Dongguan Cup Awards 2009.

The success of the Dongguan Cup International Industrial Design Awards 2009 demonstrated the commitment of Dongguan Municipality Government to promoting industrial design innovation and industry structure. The closing of the event marked the beginning for further exploration of industrial design.

For more information, please contact:

Zhou Yufan
Project Consultant Officer
Guangdong South China Institute of Industrial Design
Libin Road 16, Songshan Lake Sci.-Tech. Industry Park
Dongguan City, Guangdong Province
523808 China
t: +86 769 22890228 / 22890338
e:
w: www.dgawards.com