i-give A New Era of Charity Donation K W Michael Siu & Catherine Hu The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Transcription

1 i-give A New Era of Charity Donation K W Michael Siu & Catherine Hu The Hong Kong Polytechnic University The first highly interactive donation system provides a user-friendly multimedia interface for promoting, motivating and assisting people to make donations at any particular time. In recent years, promoting and attracting more donations in a public environment has become a new global trend of the charity business, urban management and public design. The Public Design Lab and the Interaction Design Lab of the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, have developed the first highly interactive donation system, "i-give", which provides a user-friendly multimedia interface for promoting, motivating and assisting people to make donations at any particular time. This new design and invention has gained numerous international awards, including Invention of the Year Award, Best Design Award and Platinum Award (Design) at the British Invention Show 2009 in UK, President's Award and Gold Medal Award at 20th International Invention, Innovation & Technology Exhibition in Malaysia, and the Industrial Design Award and Gold Medal Award with the Special Commendation of the Jury at 37th International Exhibition of Inventions: New Techniques and Products in Geneva. The denotation of "i-give" means "I can give" and "intelligent giving system". The twoway interactive system of i-give is smart, user-friendly and highly interactive input devices for different needs and purposes of the management and end-users. It provides instant updates of the donation campaign and a high degree of satisfaction to the donors. It is flexible for different environmental setting, in particular fit for the current densely populated urban areas, and different donation purposes. Its electronic payment system with contactless smart-device overcomes the existing limitations of the coin-and notedonation practice which has been faded out in recent years. It provides interactive 1

2 multimedia entertainment response system for the acknowledgement of donation. Its newly invented inclusive form also caters to the special needs of people physically and visually impaired people. i-give System Design Overview i-give is a network-supported donation system. It combines an electronic payment system with mobile applications to provide a convenient, fun, and more fulfilling donation experience. The system architecture design is flexible and allows several charity organizations to be enlisted at any one time for prospective donors to choose from. Users of the system can review donation pleas or promotional videos of the enlisted charity organizations before making donations. The proposed concept is that through the i-give system, donors will be instantly rewarded for their donations with various digital rewards, like downloading ring tones or wallpaper images to their cell phones. This enables the donation experience to be more interactive and rewarding. Designed to be in consonance with the lifestyle of the Internet generation, the i-give system has the potentials of encouraging the younger generation to be more receptive and participative to donating for charity causes. Current Applications i-give is now under consideration for a wide implementation in Hong Kong as well as several metropolitan cities in Mainland China. A number of charity bodies have shown their interest to link their systems with the i-give system. The city of Geneva, Switzerland, and several Asian cities also considers to modify it and then install in the cities for attract donation. 2

3 i-give System Flow 3

4 i-give installation in public spaces for the purpose (rendering figures) User-friendly is the major design feature of i-give. 4

5 Contactless payment (donation) design feature. Blind persons can use the specially designed tactile device instead of the touch screen input. Sound output is provided for blind people. 5

6 i-give installed on street (Berlin, rendering). i-give installed on street (Mongkok, Hong Kong, rendering). 6

7 i-give with the whole set of multi-purpose pole; with lighting, sound promotion and banner hanging (day time). i-give (night time). 7