Academic, public and private partners collaborate across boundaries to improve wellbeing.
The Design for Wellbeing initiative is an excellent platform for sustainable development for the future since it targets wellbeing, which is not a specific thing but rather a desired state of being. This creates an excellent opportunity to discuss “what is wellbeing for me, and how do I get there?”. So far, the following university partners have participated; Luleå University of Technology, Stanford University, Lund University, Blekinge Institute of Technology, KTH (Royal Institute of Technology).
Here are some testimonials from our collaborative network
PROFESSOR LARRY LEIFER
Director, Center for Design Research, Stanford University, USA
”The Stanford Center for Design Research creates customer wellbeing through the application of advanced design informatics. Our projectbased-learning courses always engage real outside clients to assure that students deliver wellbeing to real people. Our design research program studies engineers at work to improve the way they deliver innovative solutions. Using advanced design informatics technology enables the global partnerships needed to support our customers and our designers.”
H.F. MACHIEL VAN DER LOOS, PH.D.
Rehabilitation R&D Center, VA Palo Alto Health Care System, USA
”Our Center is devoted to designing and developing tools, devices, equipment, and information technology to assist people with disabilities, improve their quality of life and fulfill their life goals. The combination of research and design/ development activities, backed by extensive evaluation studies, enlists deep knowledge to create successful advances in rehabilitation and improve the wellbeing of people with disabilities.”
AGNETHA MBUYAMBA
President, The Swedish National Association for Disabled Children and Young People (RBU), Sweden
”Good assistive devices are central to people with disabilities. This is especially true for children and young people who are growing and developing. Good assistive devices for play and leisure are as important as devices for work and school. It might seem obvious that such devices work equally well outside and inside, in winter and in summer, in the city and in the woods — but there is still a great deal of work needed to reach this goal. Design for Wellbeing is an exciting initiative, which RBU actively want to support and participate in.”
PROFESSOR HISATO KOBAYASHI
Faculty of Engineering, Hosei University, Japan
”Hosei University is planning to launch a new institute related to Wellbeing Design in the next year. We are going to do several projects including conceptual design for wellbeing environments and assistive technology for wellbeing.”