REScue allows very precise and adapted ventilation for patients. Fast-access buttons allow easily access to customized interfaces for optimal patient care in different usage scenarios, from simple breathing support for paramedics to complex ventilation modes for intensive-care physicians. Furthermore, the integrated wireless pulse oximeter can monitor the intubation and ventilation performance at all times.

Credits: University of Wuppertal and Oliver Mueller
Contact: Oliver Mueller: oli.mueller@mac.com

BearHug is an inflatable vest to provide deep pressure therapy to children with autism. Many children with autism become overwhelmed by their environments. Firm pressure to the torso helps to regulate the sensory system to relieve anxiety and symptoms such as tantrums, self-injury and repetitive behaviors. BearHug provides a stylish solution that promotes independence and integration with users’ peers.

Credits: Emily Carr University of Art & Design and Lisa Fraser
Contact: Lisa Fraser: lisa.fraser3@gmail.com

Easy to press suggests that using a thumbtack can be easier. Its angled profile makes pushing it in and pulling it out easier.

Credits: Yeungnam university, Industrial Interaction Design and Junwon Yang
Contact: Junwon Yang: joonony@gmail.com

This project was designed to help anyone easily thread a needle. The design maintains the common form of a needle, but the needle head is made of rubber. By using the elasticity of rubber, when you press the top of the head, the hole will widen so you can push the thread through much easier than with a common steel needle.

Credits: Hoseo University, Hye jin-Lee and Mi yeon-Kim
Contact: Hye jin Lee: asdfqaz1@naver.com

In Frozen, the ice expands, shatters and creates new meaning for words and images. Paper-cut-out letters and images are frozen within small and large ice blocks. The ice and the act of freezing externalize the concept of stopping a moment in time, preserving a fragment. Freezing a word or image offers different ways of reading it, requiring viewers to reconsider their notions of the word or image.

Credits: School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Sung Suh
Contact: Sung Suh: ideafrozen@gmail.com

In scuba diving, buoyancy is important, despite it being one of the most difficult skills to master in the sport. For paraplegic divers, it’s almost impossible to keep balance and position underwater without special adjustments in equipment. This concept for a buoyancy compensator/diving vest widens the inflatable areas on users’ upper torso, lower torso and side, making it possible to control their position in real time while underwater.

Credits: Umeå Institute of Design and Emil Orman
Corporate Sponsor: Waterproof
Contact: Emil Orman: emilorman@gmail.com

A Better Working Environment for Certified Nursing Assistants

A Better Working Environment for Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA) enables CNAs to safely dispose of the bowel movement of elderly residents during their shower routine. It is safer, cleaner and reduces the burden on the CNA by cutting back on the number of steps they need to take if the unexpected happens.

The Funnel is a food-steaming appliance that features a scale that accurately controls the quantity and pressure of water injection. In addition to water injection, it ensures there isn’t any steam leakage or reflux, which can affect the food and overall effectiveness.

Designed by Haimo Bao, Jiwei Huang, Xiang Liu, Yongqiang Wang, Xiaobu Jia, Kun Xu, Song Qiao, Jiwei Zhang and Mingcang He of School of Design, Dalian Nationalities University

Contact: Jiwei Zhang - bhmo-design-team-d@163.com

Despite its characteristics such as greater energy efficiency and life expectancy in comparison to incandescent lamps, fluorescent lamps contain toxic residues which may contaminate the environment in case of inappropriate discard or accidents regarding its handling and transportation. FLC sustainable, beyond a mere package, proposes a new kind of relationship between the consumer and the compact fluorescent lamp package by facilitating the return of the replaced, old or damaged bulb to its manufacturer and its due recycling. The package, composed mainly by a molded paper pulp case, besides protecting efficiently the new lamp from the point of sale to its place of use, acts as a protective structure for the inoperative lamps, which can therefore be discarded safely in domestic waste or forwarded to a proper waste collection point.

Designed by Guilherme Parolin

Contact: Guilherme Parolin - Guiruerume3@gmail.com

Pivot: Empowering Trafficked Victims is a product with a hidden message intended to help victims of human trafficking become aware of their rights and the organizations that can help them. Because the information is hidden inside an everyday product, it can reach victims without their captors’ knowledge and without direct service-provider-to-victim contact.

The pilot for this concept targets female victims; the product is an ordinary-looking sanitary pad, something that is used when a person is alone. Folded inside the pad is a water-soluble insert containing a message and a hotline number that can be accessed when a victim is physically and mentally ready to get help. Ideally, a woman will be alone in a restroom when she finds the message, enabling her to read the information, detach the phone number and flush the rest of the insert in the toilet.

The pads will be distributed to at-risk women through health clinics, human-services organizations and community organizations. The insert is printed on water-soluble paper so it can easily be destroyed after detaching the hotline number. The hotline number is disguised as a fortune cookie wish, so if discovered by a trafficker, it would not raise suspicion. The insert also addresses time constraints, language barriers and varying levels of literacy by using text in combination with illustrations that have a relatable level of abstraction. Additionally, in collaboration with the Washington Anti-Human Trafficking Network (WARN), the culture of the at-risk person was considered in developing imagery and language that invokes trust.



Pivot was designed to address several specific problems in human trafficking. According to human-rights advocates, human trafficking victims can only be helped when they are emotionally and physically ready to leave their captors. Simply put, most victims aren’t rescued; they choose to seek help. The problem that many victims face is that once they are ready to seek help, they don’t know where to turn. At the same time, victims are usually under close scrutiny by their captors, making it difficult to carry rescue information with them. According to some victim services providers, victims are most at risk of violence from their captors when the captors suspect the victims will try to escape.

Pivot provides a way for victims to discreetly keep crucial information until the moment they are ready to use it. When ready, a victim can call the national hotline number listed on the insert and speak directly with a resource who will connect her with housing, legal, emotional and financial support. 



Pivot is not a stand-alone solution to the entire problem of human trafficking; rather it offers an effective to address the problem of providing discreet rescue information to some hard-to-reach populations. Although the current product is intended for trafficked women, the basic concept can be expanded to items that would target trafficked men.

Designed by Adriel Rollins, Josh Nelson, Kari Gaynor, Melanie Wang and Mike Fretto of University of Washington Division of Design

Contact: Josh Nelson - jdnid@uw.edu