PopSci/Core77 Design Challenge: Personal Security
Personal Security
Design a product that explores novel opportunities for personal security.
Registration Deadline
July 9, 2004
Entry Deadline
July 11, 2004
The notion of personal security is both timely and timeless. From wildlife-deterring campfires to motion-sensing outdoor lighting, the quest for personal security has incorporated various levels of urgency, context and efficiency. What are the forces driving developments in personal security today, what will they be in the future, and how should designers respond to these demands?
PSC77 Challenge #4: “Personal Security” challenges participants to design a product that explores the concept of personal security. For this challenge, entries should be submitted for consideration in one (and only one) of four sub-categories: Preventive Measures, Self-Defense, Emotional Security, or Financial Security. Designs should be based on existing or emerging technologies, not on magic or nonexistent materials. Entries will be judged on originality, innovation, intellectual rigor, design and presentation.
Notes on the four sub-categories:
Preventive Measures
From smoke alarms and MedicAlert bracelets to nannycams and cholesterol medication, products that take preventive measures anticipate personal security risks, and are therefore closer to an insurance premium than pieces of conspicuous consumption. What are new opportunities for products designed to take advance measures against the unwanted?
Self Defense
The notion of self-defense straddles the line between defensive and offensive products: consider pepper sprays that fit in a purse and Kevlar bulletproof vests. What are the opportunities for new products that increase our physical safety, and how do we invent humane solutions that balance our need to protect ourselves against misuse?
Emotional Security
Emotional security can be embodied in both low- and high-tech items, from blankies and teddy bears to cellphones and RFID child-tracking bracelets. The notion of emotional security is often subjective and qualitative, and relative to culture and the times we live in. What constitutes emotional security, and are there ways to provide it to people whose emotional states are different from our own?
Financial Security
From fingerprint-enabled credit cards and PIN numbers to wallsafes and money belts, financial security on a personal level is inextricably tied to larger forces beyond the individual. What are the limits of personal financial security, and how can products push those limits to increase an individual’s financial security?
