Thomas Degn
Associate Professor in Industrial Design at Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå University.
Designing for Tomorrow’s Paramedic: Student Visions for Emergency Care
Föreläsningen
This presentation explores how cross-disciplinary collaboration can generate innovative solutions for the future of pre-hospital and emergency care. Drawing on more than a decade of conceptual design projects developed with paramedics, police, and firefighters, the lecture demonstrates how industrial design methods can critically examine existing practices and uncover new opportunities for frontline responders.
Through collaborations with partners including Laerdal Medical, Getinge, Cytiva, FLIR Systems, Philips, and Dräger, the lecture presents case examples illustrating how creative design inquiry can challenge existing solutions and inspire new concepts.
By bridging design research, technology, and real-world emergency practice, the presentation highlights the potential of collaboration between paramedics, industry and designers to develop practical, future-oriented products and systems that support the first responders of tomorrow.
Erfarenhet
Thomas Degn is an Associate Professor of Industrial Design at Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå University, Sweden. He holds a Master’s degree in Advanced Product Design from the same international programme he has led since 2009.
As a design educator, his work explores the intersection of user needs, contextual insight, emerging technologies, business strategy, and sustainable innovation. His pedagogical focus is on identifying meaningful design opportunities through the optimistic lens and methodical concept development process of industrial design.
Under his leadership, students in the Master’s programme in Advanced Product Design have won hundreds of international awards at prestigious competitions such as the iF Design Student Award, Red Dot Award: Design Concept, Core77 Design Awards, James Dyson Award, and the BraunPrize.