Student designers imagine the future for Orange

seen. To my knowledge, this is an unprecedented success rate and a real coup for our university.

“The North East Partnership has a real pedigree for offering training that prepares excellent teachers for classrooms and this latest OFSTED assessment reflects that. The Partnership is just that – a true partnership with the schools, which means that Northumbria graduates leave us with a real-world understanding and appreciation of what it means to be a great teacher.”

Professor Kath McCourt, Executive Dean for Northumbria’s Health and Life Sciences said: “We all remember a favourite teacher from our school days; someone who inspired us to work harder and push ourselves further. I take great pride in the knowledge that the quality of our programmes is helping to create the new generation of favourite teachers - each of whom will nurture the students who will study with us in years to come.

“To be the only university in the UK to have sustained an outstanding review since 2002 is a real achievement and I’d like to extend my congratulations to everyone who has been involved. Such is the demand for our highquality teacher training, that we receive ten applications for every one place on our programmes. This ‘outstanding’ assessment from OFSTED means that we can broaden our appeal further and attract more of the highest-quality students to study at Northumbria.” which matches the philosophy of Design at Northumbria very well. This means the project is not about imagining how technologies will work in the future but exploring what kind of future we really want. Only then can we consider how digital technologies can help to bring those ideas to life.” prestigious design schools, Orange hopes to stimulate innovation, anticipation and creativity at its very source and in a way that provides a real stepping-stone for students.

Two Northumbria University Knowledge Transfer Partnerships –managed by graduates – have received national awards for improving the lives of older people in the North East.

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) provide opportunities for university graduates to lead on projects that place academic expertise and research at the heart of business and public sector innovations. In securing one of these paid opportunities, graduates gain invaluable industry experience to kick-start their career in a competitive market place.

The annual KTP Awards –which highlight the best in the country – recognised the work of two Northumbria graduates on partnerships with North Tyneside Council and Age UK Newcastle.

Jo Rose, project manager of the North Tyneside Council KTP, won the Business Leader of Tomorrow Award for her project that helps older people live independently in their own homes. The category recognises the individual talents and achievements of Associates who, while working on their KTP project, demonstrate the potential to become a future business leader.

Jo’s award recognises some of the innovations she has helped to shape, including developing a relocation strategy for over 1,000 older people in North Tyneside, and securing funding for a pilot project to address the emotional factors facing older people when moving home.

Design students from Northumbria University are representing the UK in a prestigious international design competition run by Orange.

Just five design schools from three countries – France, the United Kingdom and South Africa – have been selected to participate in the third edition of the Orange Young Designers Competition. Northumbria University’s design school is the only UK institution to be invited to enter the telecommunication operator’s international competition, entitled ‘Orange spreads your wings’. Young designers are challenged to take a fresh look at personal digital space and how it will evolve in the short to mid-term. Entrants must imagine the future in the form of a filmed scenario that explains how cloud computing and cloud-based services will help people in their daily lives.

The competition entries will be judged by a prestigious panel of experts, presided over by Margaret Stewart, Director of Product Design at Facebook, and including professional designers, industry experts, sociologists and journalists. The judges will examine the ideas and concepts presented by students, deciding on the winning projects in March.

Pierre-Yves Panis, Director of Design and User Experience at Orange, said: “Design at Orange is focused on customer-experience above all else. This means stepping into the shoes of technology users in order to think about new ways to make their experiences more practical, more intuitive, simpler and even more memorable.

Having been rated fourth in the UK in Sir Andrew Witty’s review of universities and growth for establishing start-up companies last year, this support reflects the University’s determination to help its own graduates become the successful entrepreneurs of tomorrow. Indeed, there are 114 Northumbria graduate business start-ups currently trading with almost 780 employees.

Speaking at the event Lucy Winskell, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Business and Engagement, said:

“Northumbria University is acknowledged as being among the very best at supporting startups in Sir Andrew Witty’s Review of Universities and Growth, so we recognise the opportunity that securing sustainable funding brings small businesses and social enterprises.

Meanwhile, the partnership between Northumbria, Age UK Newcastle and Northumbria graduate and KTP Associate Laura Warwick, using service design to change the culture and service delivery of Age UK Newcastle, was chosen by the UK Research Councils to receive a KTP award in the RCUK Knowledge Base Impact category. The category recognises and celebrates the process of transferring knowledge and expertise from the research base of higher education and the public sector for the wider benefit of society and the economy.

During the three year KTP, Laura’s input has helped to embed service design principles within Age UK Newcastle and in the national strategy that guides all 330 Age UK partner organisations. Innovations have seen the charity implement a new ‘Telephone Neighbourhood Service’ to support older people living in the community. Both Laura and Jo have been supported throughout their partnerships by academics in Design and Health who have helped them to merge theory with practice to achieve real impact.

Eleven Northumbria students from Design for Industry, Fashion Communication and Interactive Media Design programmes will develop their UK competition entries. During a three-month project the students are supported by Northumbria designers and academics in close collaboration with Orange’s professional marketing and design teams.

The Northumbria team showcased their concepts to senior representatives from Orange when they visited City Campus.

Matthew Lievesley, Reader in Human Centred Problem Solving at Northumbria, said: “Orange are clearly passionate about design that puts the interest of the user first,

Three prizes of €5,000 each will be awarded. The Design for all prize highlights the most accessible project, Embodiment supports an innovation that could rapidly be on the market, and Vision rewards tomorrow’s innovations that go beyond the frontiers of today’s knowledge.

A series of exhibitions to promote all the projects presented by the young designers, providing the public with an original insight into emerging design trends, will take place after the awards ceremony.

For Orange, the competition reflects their overall policy to use design as a key ingredient for improving customer experience. By facilitating close co-operation between their marketing and design teams and some of the world’s most

“For us, it makes perfect sense to ask design students, who are ideally positioned both as users of technology and future designers, for their vision and empathy on all these areas.”

`Show Me The Money’ was delivered jointly by The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), the North East Social Enterprise Partnership (NESP) and the University to help understand the sources of finance and how to gain access.

Small businesses and social enterprises regularly cite access to affordable finance as one of the main barriers to growth.

For the latest news on the competition and to find out more about design at Orange, scan this code.

Government research has also shown that almost a third of small businesses view obtaining finance as one of their biggest challenges. The findings are mirrored by research from Social Enterprise UK, which shows 39% of social enterprises see difficulties in accessing finance as hampering their activities.

With a strong demand-led focus Northumbria is committed to delivering real solutions to this clear business need.

“We are backing this conference because small businesses and social enterprises are vital to the health of our regional economy, and we must do all we can to ensure their ability to grow and flourish is not undermined by a lack of affordable finance.”

Ted Salmon, North East Regional Chairman, Federation of Small Businesses, said:

“The role of small businesses in the North East can’t be underestimated. The 134,000 small businesses we have in the region employ 333,000 people and contribute £24bn to the regional economy. We know that accessing finance at an affordable cost is one of the biggest barriers our members and social enterprises face. Working in partnership with NESEP and Northumbria University we wanted to show what finance was available and how to get it.”