Biographies 
Laurie Reynolds – Alternative Wheels
Laurie Reynolds is a Chartered Engineer with a passion for technical innovation and design, which stemmed from childhood talks around the dinner table on how to fix metal objects when they went wrong. His initial career of 30 years was with Thames Water, where he founded the Engineering Design Awards to recognise functional design in major capital investment projects and team based design. After leaving Thames Water, Laurie spent a year working for a control systems company before he set up as an independent consultant in sensors and control systems, working with a number of small companies engaged with bringing technically innovative sensor products to the market.
In 2005 Laurie realised his dream of running his own company when he set up Qdos Cars with his son. As the unique distributor for Hampshire, Dorset and the Isle of Wight, Qdos Cars sell the QPOD, a miniature all-terrain off-roader vehicle for the Unique Motor Company, founded by Noel Edmonds. This has inspired an interest in the future of sustainable personal transport and the market opportunities arising from it, which Laurie believes is down to innovative design, original recyclable materials, efficient power systems and most importantly, teamwork.
Mary Mullin – Past Masters, Future Mentors
Mary V Mullin has a wealth of knowledge in the design arena; she is Chairman of the Sir Misha Black Awards Committee for Distinguished Services to Design Education, and Chairman of the Paul Reilly Trust Committee, as well as Vice President and past National Chairman of the Design and Industries Association and Regional Adviser to ICSID, the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design.
Mary has lived and worked in Ireland, the United Statesand theUKwhere she ran her own design management consultancy based in London. Her knowledge has led to her being an advisor to UNIDO on industrial design development in Latin America; particularly Mexico, Columbia, Brazil and Argentina. In addition she has organised design events and conferences in Europe, Asia and North & South America. She was the first woman to be elected Vice President of ICSID, and she served as Secretary General of ICOGRADA (International Council of Graphic Design Associations) for almost fourteen years. She remains a Founder Member of the Crafts Council of Ireland."
In Ireland, Mary worked for Kilkenny Design Workshops, and with the Boilerhouse at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Science Museum in London. She was founding Director of the National Centre for Culture and Arts in Dublin (now the Irish Museum for Modern Art) and has served on numerous international design and craft juries and committees and written on these subjects. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art and of the International Society of Typographic Design.
Professor Ron A. Nabarro – Intelligent Design
Born in the Netherlands, Professor Ron Nabarro is a designer, researcher and educator. His principle areas of research interest are in design management, design education and design for the elderly. He has been a practicing designer since 1970, having designed over 600 products.
Currently the Professor of Industrial Design at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Ron is Founder and Head of the graduate program in Industrial Design and Design Management. Prior to joining the Institute, Ron was Dean of the School of Design and Art at the Holon Academic Institute of Technology. In addition, Ron is the founder and director of Innovation by Design Ltd (1973), design4all (2001), and he is the co-founder and president of Senior-Touch ltd (2003).
His flair for design has won him 23 design awards on both a national and international scale. Some of the many ways in which he applies his talent is through presenting design conferences and seminars, running workshop seminars and lectures in design schools around the world, and writing many articles on aspects of design management and green design among others.
Uwe Bruckner – The Art of Taming the Instant
Uwe Bruckner is an Architect and Stage Designer. Born in Bavaria, Uwe started his career in architecture at the Technical University in Munich and went on to become a freelance architect at the office of Professor Sampo Widmann in Munich for a few years, before establishing himself as a architect and exhibition designer at the Atelier Knut Lohrer in Stuttgart, working on museums, exhibitions, installations and design.
In 1988, Uwe went to study Costume and Stage Design at the Academy of Arts in Stuttgart with Professor Jurgen Rose, working on projects from Shakespeare to Robert Wagner. In 1993, he co-founded atelierbruckner, a studio for architecture, exhibition design and scenography in Stuggart, positioning himself as the Art Director.
Throughout his work, Uwe has travelled Europe, giving lectures on his experience and talents, and has gained professorship at the University of Arts and Design Basel in Switzerland for Exhibition Design and Scenography and an invited professorship at the University of Media in Cologne, teaching on Szenpography in Media Installations.
During his career, Uwe has won many awards including the Golden World Award of IPRA 2000 in New
Professor George Burden – Introduction to the Symposium
Hailing from the North of England, Professor George Burden has held industrial and human factors design positions in Englandand taught and consulted in industrial design and human factors in the USAfor a number of years as a professor at OhioStateUniversity. From 1973-2004, he was professor of industrial design at the Hochschule fur Gesaltung in Germany, where he built up a successful international study programme and planned and ran educational projects for Asian designers.
In 2004 he was awarded the Baden-Wurttembnerg State Prize for Teaching Excellence, and in 2005 received the Staufer Medal of Baden-Wuttemberg for his international activities on behalf of education. His international activities now include teaching and advising at educational institutions throughout Europe. He holds an honorary professorship in industrial design at the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts in Wuhan, China.
He is a member of the Fulbright Commission’s central selection committee for scholarships and served in a similar capacity with the German Academic Exchange Service for many years. He was a member of the organising committee for two ICSID Educational Conferences in Seoul 2001 and Hanover 2003.
George’s professional interests include the study of design and development processes, those human and design factors which determine the understandability and usability of products throughout their life-cycle, and the nature of the relationships which people develop with products as they use them to preserve and enliven their cultures.
Joyce Palmer
Joyce is currently Director of the School of Design at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth, where she is responsible for a range of BA Honours and Foundation Degree courses covering Fashion, Interior Design, Product and 3D Design, Costume Design for the Screen & Stage, Modelmaking and Spatial Design. The Institute is expanding rapidly and theSchool of Design’s portfolio will include a BA Architecture in addition to the development of a range of Masters-level programmes addressing issues of entrepreneurship within a design context
An additional area of responsibility is the strategic and operational development of a unique Design Collection Museum, which comprises some 7,500 examples of contemporary mass produced design.
Prior to moving to the Arts Institute in 2004 Joyce was the Subject Head of a large and diverse body of design courses which ranged from industry-focussed City & Guilds courses through National Diplomas, Higher National Diplomas, Undergraduate Honours Degrees, Masters- level courses and a portfolio of 30 professional practice and master classes at the Sir John Cass, London Metropolitan University.
Joyce currently holds three External Examiner posts, two at BA Honours undergraduate level and one at MA level in Design, in addition to an appointment as a QAA Subject Reviewer in Art & Design. She was also a member of the panel responsible for the development of the Art and Design Benchmark Document which is a primary reference for all Art & Design undergraduate courses in the UK.
Since 2002 onwards she has been a member of the Fulbright Commission in Germany, involved in the selection of German design graduates to receive major scholarships for Doctorate Studies in Design in theUSA. In 2003, Joyce was appointed President of the Scientific & Technical Board of the International Project Centre under the auspices of the United Nations and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Portugal.
She has delivered a number of papers at international conferences and for the British Council on developing models of entrepreneurship within design education, and she is committed to raising standards within UK and European design and to removing the traditional barriers between education and the design industry.
Joyce has worked as a designer to a number of Swiss companies including, Gubelin, Bucherer, Omega Department of Advanced Styling and Zadori A.G. and she continues to work on a commission basis.