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Prof. Bae Sang-min shows the cross-shaped foldable MP3 player Nanum. /Courtesy of KAIST
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An MP3 player designed by a university professor for an education charity project has won a world-renowned design award. The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology said Wednesday that the school's industrial design team led by Prof. Bae Sang-min won the silver prize at the 2008 International Design Excellence Awards for its "CrossCube" Nanum foldable MP3 player.
The gadget was designed as part of the Nanum Project, a donation project that is funded through new product developments and sponsored by international aid organization World Vision and oil company GS Caltex. All W400 million (US$1=W1,013) profits from the player made since November last year have been donated for education programs for low-income households.
The KAIST team designed the player for free in the shape of a cross -- the symbol for neighbors -- which turns into a dice-sized cube when folded up. The first product made under the project was the USB Nanum memory stick designed by Innodesign, and its profits of some W341 million were also donated.
Hosted jointly by the Industrial Designers Society of America and BusinessWeek magazine, IDEA is one of the world's top three design awards along with Germany's International Forum Design Awards and the Red Dot Design Awards. Prof. Bae's team won the "Best of the Best" award at Red Dot last November with the Roly Poly Pot, a planter that tips to the side when the plant is thirsty.
"I just hoped to contribute to making a better world through charity products created in cooperation with academics, non-government organizations, and corporations, by making everyone happy -- those who buy the products and those who are helped," Bae said. "And now that I have received this big award, I feel very much grateful. I will continue to participate in the Nanum Project."
The Nanum MP3 player is available at the GS Caltex Kixx website (nanum.kixx.co.kr).
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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