Presented by the British Council and led by the Royal College of Art Helen Hamlyn Centre, the 48-Hour Inclusive Design Challenge in Hong Kong will be held from August 28-30, 2008 as part of the "Inclusive Cities" project developed by the British Council China and East Asia region. The aim is to raise the importance of inclusive design as a tool for business advantage and innovation by involving the disabled community as a vital part of the design process.

Inter-disciplinary teams of designers from Hong Kong, mainland China, Korea and the ASEAN region will be led by a veteran designer from the UK, paired with a disabled design partner and asked to work against the clock to a thematic brief delivered at the start of the Challenge on Day 1.

The outcome is to develop innovative and inclusive new product and service ideas for the mainstream market - ones which span all design disciplines from product design, interaction design, 3D design, environments, services and visual communications. At the same time, the challenge will act as a platform for introducing inclusive design thinking for social inclusion.

Teams must deliver their design solutions to an invited audience of their peers and the disabled community at a public event on Day 3. The results of the competition will be decided by audience vote.

For designers the Challenge is about operating outside their usual comfort zone, looking at a problem from the very different perspective of the disabled consumer and using those lateral insights to innovate for the mainstream consumer market. In the process, they learn the key skills they need to compete in a world where inclusion through design is increasingly legislated and desired by clients, major corporations and consumers of all ages and abilities.  It is about being ahead of the game in an interdependent and increasingly aging world.

For the disabled community it is a chance to be full participants in the design process and make their voice heard.

For more information, please visit http://www.britishcouncil.org.hk/48hour.