On December 9th, C Foundation and KUKA Home co-hosted the 2017 Charity Dinner: Design Thinking & Value Sharing Forum. The event brought together over 100 Chinese design masters as well as representatives from many well-known home decoration manufacturers, facilitating exchanges centering around the “design+” era and renewing interest in and commitment to design and charity. 

A truthful and insightful TED talk

When we design, what are we doing?

Designers are never that simple. When designers design, what are they really doing after all?

The Design Thinking & Value Sharing Forum invited 10 outstanding design-related speakers from C Foundation, design associations, enterprises and media outlets. Each of them gave a four-minute TED talk respectively titled “science & technology and design”, “travel and life”, “get rid of it all, and then you win”, “a little talk about the rest of our life”, “what did ancestors leave behind in our blood”, “the way children think of the world”, “power of laymen”, “it all started with autistic children”, “forget about it, creativity” and “even the most boring person should create a little bit fun for our world”. Diverse and connected views shared by guests from different disciplines speak to the original aspiration and pursuit of and values cherished by designers; for the over-100-strong audience and the hundreds of thousands of viewers online, these talks are a rare opportunity for them to get a glimpse of designers’ outlook on the world. Jiang Feng, Director of C Foundation

Liu Xu, President of China Interior Design Association

Zhao Hu, Chairman and publisher of Interior Design China

Hang Jian, Deputy Dean of China Academy of Art

Zhang Lei, founder of Pinwu Design Studio

Gu Jiangsheng, President of KUKA Home 

Wu Xingjie, CEO of Aupu Group Holding Co., Ltd.

An Zhongyan, President of Beijing Vita Furniture

Su Dan, Deputy Dean of the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University

Rao Jianghong, well-known media professional and partner of Haozai Science and Technology (haozai keji)

An energizing and galvanizing charity night 

When we work for charity, what are we doing?

At the annual Charity Dinner held at the end of the year, C Foundation would release a summary of the performance of public-welfare projects over the year and planning for the next year. The event started in 2014 and is now in its fourth year. It aims at building a platform with the greatest influence in the industry for facilitating design and charity exchanges and promoting their value, sowing seeds for design and charity and sustaining the momentum for C Foundation to forge ahead.

C Foundation and KUKA Home announcing a five-year strategic partnership for charity

At the beginning of the dinner, C Foundation and KUKA Home announced their five-year strategic partnership for charity, which involved working together to host the charity dinner and design forum activities for five years in a row. At the event, they initiated the call for action, discussed the way for design going forward, promoted the integration of the design industry, education, research and application, and advocated for driving industrial development and advancing charity with design.

Steve Leung, Executive Chair of 2017, reviewed charity work of 2017

What comes next is a simple but meaningful handover ceremony for Executive Chair of the Year. Steve Leung, the Executive Chair of 2017, first reviewed the charity work of 2017 and then sincerely thanked people from all walks of life for their support to C Foundation as always that helped C Foundation come this far. He announced 4 new Executive Directors, namely Tong Lan, Qu Guangci, Liu Xiaodan and Fanling, who are younger members from diverse backgrounds that would help energize C Foundation. 

C Foundation handover of Executive Chair of the Year

Speech delivered by the Executive Chair of 2018 when taking office

The outgoing and incoming Executive Chair had a hug, which marked the completion of the handover and the beginning of Liang Jianguo’s term as the Executive Chair of 2018. In the speech he delivered in the new capacity, he said that we stood here firmly with our heart filled with gratitude and expectation and the hope that we could proceed with charity work more efficiently. He said that “we” are the best choice to take on the tasks and that “let’s create ordinary miracles together!”

In this year’s donation, C Foundation Director Dai Kun announced the C Foundation Exclusive Fund Scheme and called for entrepreneurs to establish a fund solely owned by themselves or by their enterprise so that their kindness could spread further and benefit more people.

Moderator Liu Xiaodan, the new Executive Director of C Foundation, announced the non-profit projects in need of financial support in 2018: (1) projects financed by C Foundation: the 2018 4×4 Workshop Experiment Project, the 2018 Taiwan-Strait Hand Drawing for Interior Design Competition and Relevant Exchanges, and the Traditional Chinese Craft Materials Library; (2) projects operated by C Foundation: the 2018 C Foundation Academy Project A, 2018 C Foundation Academy Project B, 2018 C Foundation Scholarship and 2018 China Design Forum. Many enterprises and individuals actively made donations, creating an animated and heart-warming vibe throughout the venue.

It is worth mentioning that after volunteer recruitment was announced in September of this year, many people have signed up and officially worked as volunteers for the first time at this charity dinner, delivering great and heart-warming services in the December Hangzhou.

The charity work exhibition zone illustrating the beauty of design

What have we done for charity?

The public-welfare project review exhibition hosted by C Foundation unfolded in KUKA Building on the same day as the annual charity event. With elaborately made objects and concise pictures and videos, the exhibition showcased performance of public-welfare projects operated or financed by C Foundation over the year, once again illustrating the beauty of design. 

Special thanks goes to Ling Zongyong, the Taiwan master of floral arts, for making floral design himself for free for the event. 

C Foundation, the first voluntarily organized foundation in the Chinese design community, has always been committed to helping Chinese design thrive. On its third anniversary, it worked with KUKA Home, a renowned home decoration brand, to co-host the annual Charity Dinner and design forum for the fifth year in a row, which this year focuses on design, creation and charity with the hope of driving industrial development with design and making the “design+” model more common and more sophisticated and thus truly helping Chinese manufacturing to make use of the opportune timing and transit from large scale to genuine strength.