The prize of UX Challenge 2018, the technological challenge on co-design of digital products for 5 companies in Trentino sponsored by HIT, was awarded to “Interacteam”

[PRESS RELEASE] The format used by the challenge is very simple and innovative: on the one hand, the 5 finalists – GPI, Phoenix Informatica, Tera Group, 2Aspire and C2B4Food, selected from a larger group of interested companies – pose concrete issues connected with interface and digital interaction of their products and services with users; on the other hand, 10 multidisciplinary groups of students and researchers from Trentino (IT, economics, cognitive science, sociology) challenge each other to propose the best technological solutions and new prototypes to the problems posed. In this intensive activity, the teams can also rely on the professional support of a number of Trentino-based mentors in the entrepreneurial and research areas, with the involvement of 40 citizens as potential end users to test the practical value of the projects advanced.

During the UX Challenge 2018 final event on 5 October at CLab Trento, the projects were presented to a large audience, composed of entrepreneurs, professionals and enthusiasts of innovation and digital interaction. During the presentation of case studies, the effectiveness of the innovative design and re-design methods, typical of user experience applied to digital products and services, was tested and valued.

At the end of the two-day design and testing event, the “Interacteam” group was announced as the winner of the Challenge, with a project to improve and redesign the mobile app of the product called “Notify” for Phoenix Informatica Bancaria, a banking software company. The award consists of one year of free training at the Interaction Design Foundation.

The final review was introduced by the greetings of Andrea Simoni, member of the HIT Board of Directors and Secretary-General of Fondazione Bruno Kessler, who pointed out that “Technological challenges such as the UX Challenge are an increasingly used tool to bring companies’ specific requests for innovation closer to the solutions that research can offer. The system and supply chain approach represents further added value provided by these initiatives: the most promising students in the field, the world of research, professionals and companies are involved in a single technology transfer activity”.

The jury was composed of all the companies and mentors involved, and of two Service Design experts: Giulio Michelon from Belka (Trento), and Matteo Gratton from Music Tribe (Manchester, UK), who, during the evening, shared in a keynote speech his experience in building a design team.

Also, this edition of the UX Challenge was made possible by the collaboration of HIT with Confindustria Trento, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, University of Trento, Trentino Sviluppo and Pavoniano Artigianelli Institute for graphic arts, and with the support of Dolomiti UX BookClub and the Architecta association.

Contacts: 

UX Challenge su Hub Innovazione Trento

Credits: photos by Roxana Todea