Enabled by Design

Over recent years, EPFL has identified a genuine need for design expertise to successfully transform laboratory technologies into products that are available to users. Design is now a crucial resource in innovatory projects because of its user focus, strategic vision, iterative methodology and creativity. Collaboration with designers offers added value to products/services and allows the young entrepreneurs to reduce uncertainty, validate market opportunities and communicate a coherent and persuasive message to potential customers and investors.

The research team has created a web-based platform to create links between entrepreneurs and designers seeking to collaborate on technological projects. The platform offers different design missions (UX/UI, industrial design, graphic design, video, animation and photography), displays the findings from a variety of collaborative projects and provides a series of tools and articles to facilitate collaboration.

There is currently a design center within the EPFL Startup Unit which offers this service to start ups on an ongoing basis and seeks to transform emerging technologies into usable products.