Designer Yves Béhar won the Brit Insurance Design of the Year award at a ceremony at the Design Museum in London last night, for the One Laptop Per Child project.
The laptop was chosen from seven category award winners that were announced last week (see our earlier story).
Here’s some text from the Design Museum:
–
Brit Insurance Design Award 2008 Announced
Yves Béhar – One Laptop Per Child
A design to aid children’s education in developing countries has this evening been announced as winner of the first ever Brit Insurance Design Award 2008.
Yves Béhar’s One Laptop Per Child has triumphed in a shortlist of 100 designs to become the most pioneering and progressive international design from the last twelve months. James Dyson presented the winning designer with the overall winner’s award at last night’s prestigious Brit Insurance Design Awards at the Design Museum hosted by Wayne Hemingway.
The panel of expert judges comprising Alison Moloney, Rolf Fehlbaum, Lars Müller, Antonio Citterio and Daniel Weil chose Béhar’s design as overall winner from the seven major category winners announced last week, and commented: “One Laptop per Child is a fantastic project that is a feat beyond the design itself: a laptop that addresses the educational and technical needs in developing countries, the aspirations for low-cost manufacture and with an ergonomic, robust and fun design that allows children to enhance their means of learning and communication.”
Béhar designed the child-size laptop to bring children learning, information and communication where education is needed most. This was part of a non-profit programme created by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.
The inexpensive and energy-efficient computer reduces energy use by 90 percent and can be charged by hand- cranked power, making it ideal for use in rural villages. It features wi-fi antenna ‘rabbit ears’ and energy-efficient LCD. A digital writing tablet and integrated video camera and networking capabilities allow children to connect to each other, their school, their teacher and the web. Every design aspect of the machine serves a dual purpose to achieve a sense of economy and efficiency.
Deyan Sudjic, Director of the Design Museum said: “This is a striking demonstration that proves design to a ruthless budget can achieve great results. The One Laptop per Child is a pioneering design and we congratulate Yves Béhar on winning the first Brit Insurance Design Award.’’
Dane Douetil, Chief Executive of Brit Insurance commented: “We have been thrilled by the overwhelming and positive response to the inaugural Brit Insurance Design Awards, which have shown how diverse and thought-provoking good design can be. One Laptop per Child is a groundbreaking concept and a deserving winner. We extend our warmest congratulations to Yves Béhar, OLPC and Quanta Computer Inc and their
teams.”
The winning designs can be seen alongside the rest of the 100-strong shortlist at the first ever Brit Insurance Designs of the Year exhibition on display at the Design Museum until April 27.
–
Posted by Marcus Fairs
Congrats Yves!
March 19th, 2008 at 9:54 amWell done, excellent choice.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:04 amMartino, baby… you were robbed!
March 19th, 2008 at 12:36 pmfantastic. You are the best Yves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 19th, 2008 at 1:20 pmincredible idea
March 19th, 2008 at 1:28 pmsimple and strong and futuristic
One Laptop per Child is a fantastic project by MIT…Computer design is often the design of a nice box… and computer design for child it’s toy design…
Behar had in mind this nice idea :
http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DDRBt1nDFu2k
March 19th, 2008 at 1:39 pmsorry the link is not ok , it’s the yves behar’s moleskine notebook
March 19th, 2008 at 1:42 pmhttp://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DDRBt1nDFu2k
Well deserved, a truely well thought out design just hope it can really be delivered to the people who will benefit from such a well crafted piece of technology. Can’t wait to see how this product will be subverted and re-designed by the the people using it, I just think of all the little shop in Africa that fix a recharge, hack mobile phones…..
March 19th, 2008 at 5:15 pmI’m agree with Ben, very good idea but i hope( but i’m not quite sure) the design , the distribution and the monitoring will be at the level of the idea…
March 19th, 2008 at 6:00 pmBravo Yves !!! Your great job is sensitive and Future-friendly as always!
March 20th, 2008 at 7:54 amFuture-friendly? Is it eco friendly?
March 20th, 2008 at 1:27 pmHe designed this XO laptop and Y Water bottle expecially for children that are our future and treasure.
March 20th, 2008 at 5:42 pmit’s so cute, so when a designer design for children is he future-friendly or children-friendly?
March 20th, 2008 at 10:30 pmanybody is OK for that miss yuki call XO laptop ( XO is a company of Philippe Starck!!!!!) … but i’m not for the Y Water vitamin-infused organic drink targeted at kids even if the bottle has a second life as a toy using connectors that come with each bottle to join with other bottles…. it’s only clever packaging design, clever marketing … it’s not future-friendly
March 20th, 2008 at 11:17 pmY are:
March 20th, 2008 at 11:30 pm-Bottled made in China.
-Water bottled in Indonesia.
-Transported by boat to USA…
congrats yves! it’s a gr8 device n quite future friendly for kids but one thing dat probably kids wud get mature too early with dis electronic device n won’t b much playful. but on the same side they wud becme techno savvy at a quite early age which is good for their growing professional needs.
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:11 amI dunnot like the us world “Cute” about design…world famous “designer “Starck did not say “beautiful, nice” (beau infrench ) but “good” (bon in french).
March 22nd, 2008 at 10:17 amYves Behar , an other design star in US, is now “designer of the year ” in UK … Great for him and for californian fuseproject design company but inside his green computer box, how green is the product? Mary Lou Jepsen’s did a keynote presentation of One Laptop Per Child at Greener Gadgets ( she was engineer and former Chief Technology Operator of One Laptop Per Child): “By trying to do the right thing and by designing for the poorest people in the world, we’ve made the greenest laptop in the world. And that’s not just the color!” she said see the video
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/02/20/mary-lou-jepsen-at-greener-gadgets/
don’t forget to give then pen + pencil to write (and draw too )some key words free, freedom, friends, fraternity,friendship, family,education, 3 meals a day…. and not alone+addict+ videogame+ computer + TV + junkfood
March 22nd, 2008 at 11:57 amit’s team work
March 24th, 2008 at 10:21 pmConcept: Nicholas Negroponte
Designer: Yves Béhar, fuseproject (with Martin Schnitzer and Bret Recor), Design Continuum (prototype)
Human power:
Squid Labs (engineering), Yves Béhar, fuseproject, with Martin Schnitzer (design)
Software: Red Hat
Processor: Advanced Micro Devices
Manufacturer: Quanta Computer, Inc., and OLPC China, 2007
Industrial Design:
Continuum: 90%
The final 10% is to be discussed.
A thought for discussion…
March 25th, 2008 at 9:38 pmYves works here, in San Francisco. It seems to me that in some ways, he is the Gavin Newsom of design. In other ways, his designs are merely hard to remember. However, I do enjoy the Swissnex office he designed on Montgomery Street.
March 27th, 2008 at 3:46 amDo you really think his designs are merely hard to remember?
March 27th, 2008 at 9:01 pmThe majority of the work for this project was by Design Continuum. Yves gets too much credit for his role in the development of the product and design conception, he was brought in after most of the major decisions were made about the direction of the product, he was mostly a stylist. (I have no rub, just wish for credit due to whomever deserves it, and no, I’m not affiliated with Continuum)
March 31st, 2008 at 5:31 amoh, and Lisa Strausfield’s group over at Pentagram were responsible for the visual identity & graphic design. They worked very closely with the Sugar team during development
March 31st, 2008 at 5:33 amand Colin Bulthaup with Squid Labs….
April 5th, 2008 at 3:24 pmI did work for Continuum and was one of the designers of the original concept… plaka999 thanks for your support…
April 9th, 2008 at 6:34 pmi like Xo name = starck design company brand name in Paris
May 1st, 2008 at 2:25 pmXO laptop is in wikimedia
May 1st, 2008 at 2:27 pmhttp://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:cuK44FEKjhQJ:fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/XO+xo&hl=fr&ct=clnk&cd=2