Toon Design challenge (DDW2015)

Together with Joep de Wildt and Laura van de Kruijs, we formed team Yellow in last year’s Eneco Toon Design Challenge which took place at the center of the Dutch Design Week. We have been generating idea’s, talking to trendwatchers, top-notch designers and heavy users to create a  beautiful future vision for the smart thermostat Toon. Sadly, we have not been able to win the competition, but people have already shown interest in our idea. We have had the oppertunity to pitch our idea at the National Sustainability Congress 2015 in Baarn!

A summarizing video by Eneco

“What If..?” was the theme of 2015’s Dutch Design Week. And this was our starting point at the beginning of the week. What if it is 2030? How will your house look in the future. Energy will not be used the same way we do now. Houses will be selfsustainable. The energysupply will be transtformed from central to decentral. What happens with energysuppliers like Eneco?

At this point, we decided to open up our minds. To reframe the idea of energy as we Eneco sees it now. Everything we do is actually energy. We talk, laugh, connect and solve. These are all social interactions. Could this Social Energy be Eneco’s future product?

We also analyzed the market for opportunities and trends and spoke to top-notch designers Koert van Mensvoort, Jólan van der Wiel, Marjan van Aubel, Borre Akkersdijk, Ronald Lewerissa, Mark Hoevenaars, Pieter-Jan Pieters and Christoph Brach. We noticed startups like AirBNB and Uber gain populairity very easily. They are all part of the upcoming Sharing Economy Trend. These initiatives encourage the interaction between people by offering a service. They are facillitators of the new connections between people and on a bigger scale within communities.

Next to that, we noticed a lot of cases and societal challenges which are in dire need of energy. For example, unemployment, ageing and globalization. Could we combine these things and connect people with eachother to create more work or improve healthcare? And could Toon be the facilitator of this social energy exchange? Toon could be a part of a bigger whole, the helping hand, the mediator of a society by managing social energy.

Although we were not able to fully convince the judges and did not win the competition, the idea was picked up by people from Eneco and we got invited to speak at the National Sustainability Congress.

More information can also be found at colabvoortoon.nl

Check out these video recaps created by Pim Dijkman:

And finally, the aftermovie! Created by Joost van Deijzen.