Prof. Dr. Peter Zec

President of the Red Dot Design Award President of the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen. (2005-2007) President of ICSID (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design)

Professor Dr. Peter Zec, born in 1956, studied Media Science, Psychology and Art Science.
Since May 2001, Peter Zec is president of the red dot GmbH & Co. KG.
Since 1991, he has been president of the internationally renowned Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen. In 1993, he accepted the professorship of Business Communication at the University of Applied Sciences Berlin.
From September 2005 to October 2007, Zec was president of the international umbrella organisation of design ICSID (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) and from October 2006 to October 2007 chairman of the International Design Alliance IDA, thus holding the highest official posts in the design world. As a former Icsid president, he now holds the rank of “Icsid Senator” and is consulted on all important issues concerning the association.
For over 20 years, Peter Zec has been working as a design consultant with numerous companies in foreign countries. He has gained world-wide recognition with lectures in more than 30 countries.
In October 2006, the leading German magazine for economics, the “WirtschaftsWoche“, elected Peter Zec one of the “20 creative unconventional thinkers worldwide changing the appearance of their companies and creating completely new markets”.
From 1986 to 1988 he was head of the specialist field “image” and as such was highly involved in the planning of the Centre of Arts and Media Technologies (ZKM), which had been established in Karlsruhe. Before he started working for the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen, Peter Zec was president of the Federation of German Graphic Designers (BDG) and the Association of German Industrial Designers (VDID).
As an expert on the German as well as the international design scene he is the publisher of the "red dot design yearbook” and the “red dot communication design yearbook”. He has published the following books among others: Informationsdesign (1988), Design goes virtual! (1996), German Design Standards (1997; 2005), Designing Success (1999), Good Design. (2000), Orientierung im Raum (2002), Hall of Fame. Companies Searching for Excellence in Design (2003; 2007), Return on Ideas – Better by Design (2006), Who’s Who in Design (2003; 2007).
Peter Zec lives in Essen and Berlin.

Vice-president of the Red Dot Design Award

Elmar Schüller, born in 1962, studied Industrial Design at the University
Gesamthochschule Wuppertal.
As a designer, Schüller worked with Krups Solingen and Krups in USA.
He also worked with Siemens AG in Munich on research projects. He then was the Design Project Leader at Dieter Sieger Design, Germany.
Furthermore, he was a lecturer in Industrial Design at the University Gesamthochschule Wuppertal.
From 1992 to 2001, Schüller was the Director of Project Management at the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen in Essen, Germany, where he was responsible for the Corporate Design and Design Management.
In 1996 and 1997 he directed the project to redesign the boiler house, which is now the red dot design museum in Essen, in close co-operation with the British architect Lord Norman Foster. Due to his broad experience he became an expert for international design trends.
Since 2001, Elmar Schüller has been the Vice President of red dot design promotion in Essen, Germany. The business activities of red dot include the red dot design awards, the in-house “red dot edition” publishing house, the online portal, as well as a wide variety of red dot design related projects.
Elmar Schüller lives in Essen.

Red Dot Singapore President 

Since 2005, Ken Koo has been the Asia President of red dot design award.  This award is the largest and most prestigious design award in the world and has 53 years of history.  Ken initiated the third installation of the red dot design award - the international red dot award: design concept.  In the same year, he built the second red dot design museum in Singapore and successfully created the iconic red dot Traffic building that presently houses many companies from the creative industry. 
Ken graduated with an Honors Degree in Accountancy at the Nanyang Technological University in 1996. Upon graduation, Ken worked with Accenture, focusing on improving business processes of multinational companies, through the use of information technology.
Fueled by his keen interest in design, in 2000, Ken left the corporate world and founded Lubaan International to promote good design from Asia.  In 2001, Lubaan debuted at the largest trade exhibition for lifestyle products, Ambiente in Frankfurt. After which, Ken launched the Dryrun platform for emerging designers in Singapore. With connections to factories throughout Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and China, manufacturing know-how and access to international marketing channels, Dryrun helped designers in Singapore develop their design concepts into products and presented these designs to the international market. 
In 2004, works from six Singapore designers were successfully developed and launched at prestigious international design exhibitions, such as the Salon du Meuble de Paris, International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in New York and Tendence Lifestyle in Frankfurt. At Tendence Lifestyle in Frankfurt, Dryrun won a place at the design hall, which features only the top 300 exhibitors from more than 3,000 exhibitors from around the world.  Dryrun’s compelling story of incubating the next generation of successful designers was featured by various design publications such as LARAS (Indonesia), Icon (UK), Blueprint (UK), Interior Digest (Russia), Lianhe ZaoBao (Singapore) and Space (Singapore).  Surface Magazine also featured one of the designs by Dryrun as the “top 50 design for men” for the year 2004. Today, Ken remains active with Dryrun as its Director and is responsible for the creative direction and strategy for Dryrun’s business.
In 2006, he initiated Market for Artists and Designers or MAAD Sunday at the red dot design museum, as a platform for young designers to experiment and test market their ideas easily. MAAD Sunday has invigorated the creative scene in Singapore by providing a recurring venue for young designers to realize their ideas and also connect the public to Singapore’s budding creative scene.
Presently, Ken is a course validation committee member for the industrial design course at the Singapore Polytechnic, and an advisory panel member for the design course at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. He is also a member of the Government Parliamentary Committee Resource Panel for the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts as well as a committee member for Spring Singapore for the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) Culture Committee.

Director of NewIDZ (Internationales Design Zentrum Berlin)

She is executive director of Internationales Design Zentrum Berlin e. V.(NewIDZ). She studied architecture and psychology at the TU Braunschweig, University Hannover, TU Berlin and at the University of Austin and received her doctorate on Communication Orientated Building structure. She worked in several international urban and design research projects e. g. in Barcelona and Paris, taught at universities and prepared an interdisciplinary workshop at the MIT in Boston. She operated as executive vice-president for the media agency MACINA Hannover/ Dubai, before she took over the chief executive position at the International Design Centre Berlin. There she initiates and is involved with new technologies in design, sustainable design, design critics, international exchange and design management.

Creative Industries and Services Management Consultant / Ind. Designer
Design Turkey Executive Comm. Member
Industrial Designers Society of Turkey Istanbul Chairman

He graduated from the Department of Industrial Design in METU in 1988.
He joined Koc Group in 1989 (which is Fortune 200). He was responsible for the management of Engineering, Technology Development and Industrial Design Departments of Demirdokum, a global Durable Consumer Goods company of Koc Group between the years 1989 - 2005. At the same time, he was responsible from the development and design progress of nearly 100 projects in 30 countries. During 2005-2007, He became the director of Design, product development, strategic market development, production, global positioning, and international marketing of JV company, a subsidiary of Koc Group in Far East.
His main profession area is the industrial design, brand and process management of household appliances, white goods, heaters, construction, tableware products and home appliances and electronic goods. In and abroad, He was assigned as jury member, auther, speaker, consultant, editorial board member, and manager in numerous Design competitions, Design magazines, conferances and Design exhibitions globally.
He also worked with global Design firms, suppliers, and market research companies.
He was responsible for the development of Design projects in Europe, Asia, Russia, China and Britain markets.
For the last four years, he is the Chairman of Industrial Designers Association of Turkey, Istanbul Branch.
He works as a consultant in Strategic Design Management and Industrial Design Projects
He is an editorial member of Icon Design Magazine, Turkishtime Economy Magazine and Daily Newspaper Radikal in Turkey, He is a consultant committee member of Istanbul Design Week, I-Deco International Design Exhibition, MarketingIST Fair, He is an executive member of Design Turkey Awards