TAIPEI CYCLE d&i awards announced 38 winning products for its 2021 edition on February 24, including six recipients of the prestigious Gold Award and one recipient of the Young Enterprise Award.
Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global industries, the awards this year still attracted nearly 110 qualified submissions from 10 countries, showing that innovation continues to thrive even in difficult circumstances. E-bikes continued to feature heavily in the winners, showing a growing maturity in the integrating of systems and parts designed with the user experience in mind.
This year’s award-winning products were chosen by Georg Todtenbier (CRE8 DESIGN, Taipei), Johann Geiger (Dayeh University, Changhua), Ken O’Rourke (KOR-DESIGN, Taichung), Moses Hu (VanMoof, Taipei), Debbie Huang (PEGA D&E, Taipei), Edward Chiang (CYD Innovation Co., Ltd., Taichung) and Francois Liang (Cycling & Health Tech Industry R&D Center, Taichung). The judges assessed the entries with their seasoned experience and through intense discussions on the basis of the following criteria: innovation and elaboration, functionality, aesthetics, responsibility and positioning.
The six winners of the gold award were:
- REACTO TEAM-E Aero Bike – Merida Industry Co., Ltd
- Cadex Boost Saddle – Cadex & Giant Group
- Liv Tropic Collection Cycling Gear – Liv & Giant Group
- Votani H3 E-Bike – Darfon Innovation Corp.
- Gmigo One Smart E-Bike – Tianjin Jidian Road Technology Co., Ltd.
- TA: e-Bike Twilight – Litemove Technology Co, Ltd. & IDS Corporations Ltd. (Winner of the Gold Award Young Enterprise 2021)
The judging group commented of this year’s awards: “The impact of the pandemic has caused significant changes in the bicycle industry in 2020. It can be seen from the entries in this year that the effort and energy put into innovative research and new product development have no longer focused on sports, competition or leisure, but tapped into the needs of various groups, such as commuting, cargo, etc. In addition, the creative process in product development also begins to shift from discovering and solving problems to focusing more on lowering the threshold and offer better user experience and narrowing the distance between the product and the user, which should be very much encouraged.”
