Touted as the Chinese Academy Award for Industrial Design, the awarding ceremony of the 2010 Lite-On Award was held today (18th). It has been a decade since the inception of the Lite-On Award, and the number of contestants and entries hit yet another record high, attracting nearly 6,000 emerging and professional designers from Europe, Asia and the United States, with a total of 2,538 entries competing for a total of one million in award prizes. In response to climate change and global trends in environmental change, the theme for this year’s Lite-On Award is “Green Evolution: Sailing to the Green Ocean” hoping to inspire designers to merge technology and green design ideas in the creation of a mighty and eco-friendly Green Ocean. The 2010 Lite-On Award entry designs were equally outstanding as the Gold Award went to both「Green Pass」from Mainland China and 「BRS」 from Taiwan, bringing home NT$350,000 each. 「T-BOX」and「Tide ebb and rising」 won the Silver Award, and 「Fresh Chair」and「LED-ESCAPE」 won the Bronze Award.
In recent years, Taiwan’s government has been actively investing in cultural and creative industries to build Taiwan into a Global Innovation Corridor, in view of enhancing the island’s high-tech innovation and strengthening the soft power of business. President Ma and Minister of Economic Affairs Yen-Shiang Shih were invited to attend the ceremony. They spoke highly of Lite-On Technology in using enterprise power to foster innovation and competitiveness in Taiwan. President Ma said in his speech that “Taiwan has been selected to host the 2011 IDA Congress, dubbed as the Olympics of Design. This is the first time for the IDA Congress to be hosted in Asia, reaffirming Taiwan’s design strengths. And these fruitful results would not have been possible without the long-term investments from both the government and the private sector.” Lite-On Award is founded upon the local spirit of Taiwan to assemble a platform for a contest on an international scale, where it has become a leading and iconic competition for industrial design in the Chinese community around the world, and more importantly, acts as a driving force for Chinese designers to stand out in the crowd.
This year’s Lite-On Award reflects on global trends in environmental change and industrial development, in hopes that the “green philosophy” can guide upstream product designers to ruminate on breathing green life into their products, so as to open up a green sea of business opportunities. Raymond Soong, Chairman of Lite-On Group, stated, “Lite-On Award is the only non-profit industrial design competition in the world. Over the past ten years since its establishment, the Awards theme has gained a full grasp of design trends and forward-looking advances in the industry. With Green Evolution: Sailing to the Green Ocean as the theme for this year, we anticipate designers to not just implement green design concepts, but integrate sustainable and green materials and manufacturing process to truly realize the vision of Green Ocean.” As a global leader in the optoelectronics industry, Soong further expressed that amidst a global economic downturn, Lite-On strategizes the concept of Green Ocean to create a competitive edge, in addition to continuing to expand its green territory and stressing green design thinking as the source of all products.
Since its inception, the Lite-On Award has been dedicated to fostering innovation and design professionals, and the past decade has fruited in ushering Taiwan into the international design arena. We aspire to keep on playing the role of a devoted promoter for Taiwan’s innovative industrial design. This year, many celebrated figures in the international design community were invited to serve on the panel of judges, including Gordon Bruce, an international guru in industrial design; and Martin Charter, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Design, UCA; in addition to Ying-Jia Yao, General Manager of Lenovo Group’s Beijing-based Innovative Design Center; Duck Hsieh, Founder and Design Director of Gixia Group; and Edward Chiang, a well-known design and brand manager.
Since 2007, Lite-On has welcomed contestants from China, and the number of Mainland contestants and entries has grown dramatically in recent years accompanied by a higher ratio of award-winnings, highlighting China’s efforts in breaking away from OEM, and moving towards design and innovation. According to Chairman Chin Kang Wang of the Taiwan Design Center, “The government has adopted guidance measures to help enterprises transform, focusing on the integration of high-tech industries with cultural creative industries. As the leading supplier of technology, Lite-On Technology continues to devote resources in making the Lite-On Award happen and has been the most significant figure in nurturing young Chinese designers and enhancing international competitiveness, contributing greatly to the development of technology industries in Taiwan.”
The Gold Award winner of the 10th annual Lite-On Award “Green Pass” (Fengchi Lu, Bi Zhao, Meixian Su, Fengming Chen, Yujie Chen, Yuke Li, and Jiamin Liang) and “BRS” ( Frank Guo) ; the Silver Awards go to the design entries “T-BOX” (Qian Jiang) and “Tide ebb and rising” (Hao Luo, Dengxue Cui, Baike Lin and Ying Jiao), and the Bronze Prizes “Fresh Chair” Yi-Miao Chen, Je shin Wang, Ssu Chen Liu, Yun Chang, Yu Jay Chen, Ching-Chang Chuang, Shaio-Chung Cha and Yu-Hung Chien) and “LED-ESCAPE” (Chiao-Li-Yu, Ching-Chang Chuang, Shaio-Chung Chan, Yu-Hung Chien, Huai-Yi Hsieh, Yang Ming-Da, Cheng-Cheng,Chun and Kung-Yi Kuang). All of the works selected for the final round put the eco-friendly 4R concept (Reuse, Recycle, Reduce, and Renewable Energy) into full play. From the design concept to material selection and process, these works fully integrate sustainable green design concepts, while applications have also moved beyond the interior framework in the past, extending to dialogues with natural environment to showcase the strong design strength of Chinese industrial designers. Bayer MaterialScience was cordially invited to co-judge the Panel of Lite-On Judges Special Award, in which the use of green materials is assessed from the material application perspective.
The winner of this year’s Material Technology Special Award went to “Phantom.” Meanwhile, “Street Energy Island” and “Part Lamp” won the Special Award. The Lite-On Popular Winner Award was given to “Tear It!” that uses a computer mouse packing case as the main body, combined with built-in materials to reduce material use by more than 30% compared to the main body of existing mouse. This effective reduction in manufacturing resources and material use accentuates environmental friendliness, for the design concept garnered praises from the judges and the general public.
Contact:
Julia Wang
Director, Investor and Public Relations
Tel: +886-2-8798-2888
LiteOnTech.IR@liteon.com
