The conference, which took place on March 9 at Rome's Acquario Romano (pictured above) drew a number of design-world leaders, including Dario Buzzini, a design director in IDEO's New York office, and Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired, reported Luisa Castiglioni of Domus magazine. "There is no nation in the world where the word 'design' has such strong meaning as here. And this is the right time for Italy to become the bearer of democratic design, Anderson said," wrote Castiglioni.
In her coverage of the confab, Castiglioni highlighted some of the standout presenters, companies, technologies, and ideas discussed. These include:
Interestingly, Italy isn't the only nation with a legendary past of creative innovation hoping to attract global attention to its contemporary design contributions. At the same time that World Wide Rome took place, the first India Design Forum was held in New Delhi on March 9-10. The Indian conference also drew many top design thinkers from around the planet--the Museum of Modern Art's chief curator of design, Paola Antonelli; frog's executive director of global insights, Jan Chipchase; and designer Karim Rashid, among other big names--who were curious to mingle with the brightest stars of an Old World nation with a rich history of elegant design and a thriving tech market today.
It will be fascinating to see how ideas will cross-pollinate internationally after such events. Imagine a conflux of Indian designers and Italian "makers" (although no such plans exist). With the worldwide calendar of design conferences and design weeks increasingly filling up, though, such exchanges might be challenging to pull off. But then again, in the age of social media, the basic concepts presented onstage at these gatherings are likely to be shared and discussed even more quickly and in a more global manner online than at their physical locations.
[Via Domus, India Design Forum]
Images: Acquario Romano, no credit available/Wikimedia Commons; Arduino, Nicholas Zambetti/Wikipedia
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com