Design to Improve Life

The international design festival INDEX:.was held in Copenhagen a couple of weeks ago. The theme was design and innovation that can improve life. The winner team consisted of the Dane Torben Vestergaard Frandsen, Rob Fleuren from Holland and Moshe Frommer from Israel. The winning object was the revolutionary LifeStrawTM. The straw is aimed at the population in the 3rd world, and they will benefit by having the possibility of clean water with a pipe filter. The worlds greatest killer is diarrhoeal diseases from bacteria like typhoid, cholera, e. coli, salmonella etc. With a LifeStrawTM one person’s annual needs of clean water can be fulfilled and nobody needs to die from these diseases.

This kind of design and innovation that is so strongly based on human observation and use of both anthropology and ethnography is really inspiring. 

Great concerts

I have recently seen two concerts that instantly went to my all time top ten. One was with the Danish band Mew, who if there is any justice in the world of music charts will soon have their big breakthrough – there music is like nothing else out there – the concert was staggering filled with songs from the new album “Mew and the Glass Handed Kites”. On top of that I’ve known the guitarist Bo since I was kid – really exiting to follow them. The other one was with the behemoth of rock’n’roll these days and soon to be “soundtrack of Coca Cola” White Stripes. Jack and Meg where flying high that evening with an energy that get’s your whole system going whether you love or hate them. I’m personally sold to their mix of classic rock, blues and punk in it’s stripped but intense and explosive manner. Furthermore their new video from the überdirector Michel Gondry is once again aesthetically and technical innovative.