A marquee event in design in the city, the three-day affair offered guests the opportunity to hear from luminaries in the creative world
Knowledge of Design Week (KODW), an annual conference that explores how design can be used to help solve the most pressing questions of our time, returned to Hong Kong from June 14-16.
Under the theme The Power of Design: Innovating for a Circular World, the event was held at Hong Kong Palace Museum. It offered 18 forums, nine workshops, two masterclasses and a series of meet-the-speakers and networking sessions. More than 1,400 participants took part, leaning in for insights from more than 40 local and international creative and business leaders from pioneering brands, companies and academic institutions.
The experts discussed leveraging the power of design to co-create a more sustainable future. Keynote speakers included Hong Kong film production company Votion Studios co-founder and president Roger Proeis and web and interactive design studio Pill & Pillow creative director Henry Chu, who showcased XR and the interplay of data and music; Teo Yang, of the South Korea-based design company Teoyang Studio, and Francesca Valsecchi, from Tongji University in Shanghai, who spoke about preserving urban legacies in cities across Asia; and Dr Fan Ling, the founder and CEO of Shanghai-based creative talent and content resources platform Tezign.com, who along with tech firm Wunderman Thompson Hong Kong CEO Maggie Wong and Microsoft Hong Kong’s national technology officer Fred Sheu, discussed the use of AI today.
KODW was established in 2006 and is organised by the Hong Kong Design Centre. Spotlighting the importance of Hong Kong as a platform for cultural exchange, Eric Yim, chairman of the Hong Kong Design Centre, says, “It is vital to foster the city’s design industry and economy, while continuously creating valuable platforms for international knowledge exchange”.