How will the design solve crimes in a future society where technology is too advanced? Gold Award of "i-PRO Future Design Challenge" goes to "PORTA"by La Myra Bening, Indonesia

Panasonic i-PRO Sensing Solutions Co., Ltd. and btrax, Inc., we are pleased to announce the winners of the "i-PRO Future Design Challenge", which was held this summer based on the theme, "A future society where technology has become too advanced, what kind of design can solve the crimes that occur there?".

As a result of the strict evaluation of entry works by the four judges, the Gold Award went to "PORTA" by Ms. La Myra Bening from Indonesia, the Silver Award went to "Glass - A Future Interface" by Mr. Arnav Nigam from India and "QGene" by QGene Solutions (Mr. Vinay Sudhakaran, Mr. Mohd. Saim Nasim Lari, Mr. Arun Thangaraj) from India.

Gold Award
PORTA by La Myra Bening (Indonesia)

Reasons for the award: In addition to the concept of a product that protects the safety of the entire smart home and its specific functions, the overall design of the product is excellent, and the excellent presentation that accurately conveys the value of the concept was an important factor in winning the high evaluation.

Concept description: The comfort provided by a smart home can dull our intuition for danger and make us unaware of abnormalities in our surroundings and environment. PORTA, which means "gate" in Latin, is a "digital gate" for the smart home. PORTA is a new solution for a safer and smarter life. It automatically terminates the Wi-Fi connection when it detects abnormal activity in the smart home and uses the backup data to operate the device. It uses voice-based passwords to increase security.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/laZcYpsY8NM

Silver Award
Glass - A Future Interface by Arnav Nigam (India)

Concept Description: With the increasing complexity of the world, it is hard to manage and control our interaction and its repercussions. 'Glass' works as a control mechanism, which also provides a seamless digital experience. Imagine 'Glass' as a window to the parallel universe, where your digital twin lives.
With the advancement in Brain-Machine Interface and AI, we might be able to control our parallel (digital) universe.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/nE_dryVtZKk

Silver Award
QGene by QGene Solutions (Vinay Sudhakaran, Mohd. Saim Nasim Lari, and Arun Thangaraj) (India)

Concept Description: QGene is a Polymorphic - DNA based tattoo to prevent digital impersonation attacks in the future. Once applied on the skin, it extracts your DNA and key behavioral traits, to generate a unique Digital Matrix based on your genome sequence - the order of your As, Cs, Gs, and Ts. This Digital Matrix is the ‘Digital Gene’ of your Digital Avatar on the internet. 
YouTube: https://youtu.be/tHdMiJEfbEM

Comments from the judgements

Bjoern Eichstaedt, Managing Partner and Co-Owner of Storymaker GmbH

As a judge I was really impressed by the winners of this contest. They found interesting ways to deal with the given topic and brought hidden aspects to the surface. Some of the design ideas went really deep into details and were very clear. The winners clearly qualified themselves with a great mix of understanding of context, creativity and attention to detail in the execution.

Mariko Nishimura, HEART CATCH Inc. CEO / Producer

The judging was full of surprises and delight as many of the solutions took a fresh approach to security in an age when sensitive information, such as vital data and bank account data, is being digitized and distributed. The judging was full of surprise and delight. I was also able to catch a glimpse of the thought process of the creators who create new value, and learn a lot from them while judging.

Casey Lau, Co-host of RISE and Web Summit Tokyo

I was fascinated by the entries trying to solve crime in a future technological savvy society. All the submissions were well thought out and well presented but I could immediately see the winning entries emerge as they stood out even more than the rest. All of the concepts were unique and had interesting design qualities and some had better presentations than others but all in all the finalists were exceptional and it was difficult to choose the winning submissions. Thank you for involving me in this competition and congratulations to the winners.

Brandon K. Hill, Founder & CEO of btrax, Inc.

We are very honored to provide this global-scale design competition for i-PRO. Even though this was the very first time for us to run the Global Design Challenge, we have received an overwhelming number of applications. And we are very impressed with the quality of service ideas to solve the future problems that the society will face. It is my passion to design to solve social challenges. In that regard, we are super excited to run this design competition. Thank you so much for your interest and submissions!

Comments from the organizer

Shohei Ozaki, Representative Director, President & Chief Operating Officer, Panasonic i-PRO Sensing Solutions Co., Ltd.

At i-PRO, we develop and provide advanced technologies based on the corporate identity of "To capture moments of truth”. We are promoting this i-PRO Future Design Challenge program because we believe that it is important to consider the sensibility of how much empathy we can gain from society and users.

In spite of the fact that this is the first time for this challenge, we were surprised and delighted to receive many applications from many people in Japan and overseas, and the quality of the entries was remarkable. Of course, those three projects selected this time were outstanding, but we were also impressed by the high level of submissions as a whole, which has been a great inspiration to us at i-PRO. We would like to thank not only the applicants, but also everyone who showed interest in this project and btrax for working with us.

About i-PRO Future Design Challenge

About i-PRO

Panasonic i-PRO Sensing Solutions Co., Ltd. is a leading global provider of essential sensing solutions for security surveillance, public safety, and medical imaging. Panasonic i-PRO Sensing Solutions was established in 2019, inheriting more than 60 years of sensing technology and innovation at Panasonic. With advanced sensing technologies that do not miss a single moment, and highly reliable solutions for any environment, we support professionals who protect and save lives, and contribute to the realization of a safer and more secure society.
(The company name will be changed to "i-PRO Corporation" in April 2022)
https://i-pro.com/corp/jp/

About btrax

btrax, Inc. is a global design company with offices in Tokyo and San Francisco, USA. With a track record of more than 300 domestic and international projects, the company provides a wide range of services including service development, design education, and research, with a focus on UX design.
https://btrax.com/jp/

For inquiries regarding this matter, please contact
Panasonic i-PRO Sensing Solutions Co., Ltd. Public Relations
E-mail: press_i-pro@gg.jp.panasonic.com