ROCKLEIGH, NJ September 9, 2019 – Volvo Cars was honored in Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards for 2019 in the Timeless Design category for Project E.V.A., its Equal Vehicles for All initiative.
Innovation by Design is the only competition to honor creative work at the intersection of design, business, and innovation.
The awards, which can be found in the October 2019 issue of Fast Company (on newsstands September 17), recognize people, teams, and companies solving problems through design. Fast Company is recognizing an influential and diverse group of 483 leaders in fashion, architecture, graphic design, data visualization, social good, user experience, mobility, and more.
With Project E.V.A. Volvo Cars has for the first time made its safety knowledge easily accessible in a central digital library, which it urges the car industry to use in the interest of safer roads for all. The announcement symbolizes the company’s philosophy of boosting safety through knowledge sharing to help save lives and comes on the sixty-year anniversary of what may have been the most important invention in the history of automotive safety, the three-point safety belt.
Introduced by Volvo Cars in 1959, the three-point safety belt is estimated to have saved over one million lives globally, not just in Volvo cars but in numerous others, thanks to its decision to share the invention in the interest of improving traffic safety. Since then it has continued to prioritize societal progress over financial gain alone.
“We have data on tens of thousands of real-life accidents, to help ensure our cars are as safe as they can be for what happens in real traffic,” said Lotta Jakobsson, professor and senior technical specialist at Volvo Cars Safety Centre. “This means our cars are developed with the aim to protect all people, regardless of gender, height, shape or weight, beyond the ‘average person’ represented by crash test dummies.”
“For decades, designers have facilitated overconsumption,” says Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. “Now, the most ambitious in the field are addressing the grave problems consumption has wrought.”
Winners, finalists, and honorable mentions are featured online and in the October issue of Fast Company magazine, on newsstands September 17. Winners will also be recognized at a special celebration at Fast Company’s Innovation Festival in November.
Fast Company editors and writers spend a year researching and reviewing applicants for the awards. This year’s applicant pool was the most competitive ever, with more than 4,300 entries.
Honorees for the 2019 awards were selected in the following categories: Apps and Games; Data Design; Experimental; Fashion and Beauty; General Excellence; Graphic Design; Health; Learning; Mobility; Products; Retail Environments; Social Good; Spaces, Places, and Cities; Students; Timeless Design; User Experience; Workplace; Best of Asia-Pacific; Best of Europe, Middle East, and Africa; Best of Latin America; and Best of North America. Fast Company is also recognizing Nike as the title’s second annual Design Company of the Year for its outstanding efforts merging digital and physical retail experiences.
To see the complete list, go to: https://www.fastcompany.com/ibd
About Volvo Car USA
Volvo Car USA LLC, (www.volvocars.com/us) is a subsidiary of Volvo Car Group of Gothenburg, Sweden. VCUSA provides marketing, sales, parts, service, technology and training support to Volvo automobile retailers in the United States. For more information please refer to the VCUSA media website at: http://www.media.volvocars.com/us.
