“DxB is like – A hybrid person!”

Charles Dumas, Mechanical & Engineering teacher – University of Technology of Jean-Monet – Saint Etienne (France)

DxB – What is your experience?

My design experience is really personal. I have a natural sensibility for shapes and products used and my wife is a Product Design teacher. We tried to include some design projects in my department and find a synthesis between design and engineering. I have searched for a long time how to integrate concepts, methods and designer tools in the mechanical engineering format. I am now at the point where I think that they are two different specialties with distinct codes and history. Those two worlds are difficult to mix in one same person, especially in France, designers create and engineers calculate. Actually this hybrid person doesn´t really exist, except maybe at the UTBM.

DxB – What drives innovation?

There were several driving forces of Innovation during our industrial history (even before the industrial erea). We could make a list of relations between the different history periods and the innovations coming from the need for evolution, for example fire for the prehistoric man, food, climate, and environment, all this pushed humans to invent and resolve problems concerning energy, informatics, internet… Todays main driving forces would be lack of energy, climate changes and other dangers.

DxB – What is the future?

We need to reinvent a world where new dangers substitute themselves which are not healthy for our commercial society development.  It is necessary to bring ethics, direction and sustainability in our consumption behaviour.