Over 50 students from the Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation met to develop data-driven solutions to counter the Covid-19 pandemic, and the initiative was called the Agile Factory, which aims to harness design capabilities, emerging technologies and data collection to create new products and services that meet pandemic-related needs.
The students considered that they are part of an event whose events dominate our lives, which led them to adopt this initiative out of their desire to participate in the humanitarian health crisis, as it intersects with the primary goal of the institute, which is finding solutions to improve life through design, as the Dubai Institute for Design and Innovation is the first university concerned In the region's design sector, it is academically accredited by the UAE Ministry of Education, and its curriculum has been developed in cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the new Parsons College of Design to enhance design thinking and creative capabilities to solve problems.
"Design in its most comprehensive sense is to meet human needs, and today we face urgent and important needs, addressing them is part of our responsibility to prepare students who are able to graduate to face global and local challenges with courage and determination," said Mohammed Abdullah, President of the Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation. This initiative demonstrated the inherent ability of our students and their creative enthusiasm to deal with such conditions, and with such young people who will, after years, be the first graduates of the institute to establish Dubai's growing position as a global center for education and development of human cadres, in order to support the UAE's vision of a sustainable economic future and as a global center not only to attract talent only Rather, to prepare and empower them. ”
The Dean of the Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation, Hani Asfour, said: “The importance of this student initiative stems from its endeavor to tackle multifaceted challenges that emerged during the Covid 19 pandemic, depending on the creative solution to the problems, the critical thinking approach, and adopting the innovation-oriented mindset to provide solutions that can be applied easily during this time. The unprecedented. The participants are divided into three teams from the first year students and from the multimedia and product design department in the second year, the first team is the creative manufacturing team that designed inexpensive and easy-to-use face masks using local resources, after 18 trial trials and consultations with doctors in the United States The UK, India and the UAE, so the team ends up choosing two prototypes to be developed. The "Design for Emergency" team developed an intelligent application that serves as an interactive platform for building social relationships during a period of extreme isolation, through which you can win prizes or choose to donate money to societal issues related to Covid-19.
Through the implementation of this initiative, students acquire necessary skills for entrepreneurs such as presenting offers, where the Dubai Institute for Design and Innovation focuses on providing students with these skills because the study of design is not only related to preparing the graduate to get a job but also enabling him to establish his own business and implement his creative ideas.
• Mohammed Abdullah: Design is to meet human needs, and today we are facing urgent needs.
The creative manufacturing team designed protective masks using local resources.