This year Qin Li leads both the Core77 Design Awards Consumer Technology category featuring consumer products that are screen-based, tech-enabled, or Internet-connected, and the Core77 Design Awards A/V & Photography Equipment category which features consumer hardware or software product designed to enhance the experience or production of audio or video.

Qin Li knows design can have a transformative impact on people's lives, starting from day one. One of Qin's best-known designs, the SNOO baby bassinet, was created to ensure that infants sleep safely on their backs and has provided more than 500 million safe sleep hours since its launch. "The journey of crafting a revolutionary product is often challenging, demanding a multidisciplinary approach, hard work, and unwavering persistence, but it's rewarding," said Qin.

Qin Li, Vice President of Design at fuseproject

In her role as Vice President of Design at fuseproject, Qin leads the creative team and oversees Industrial Design, Experience Design, Environments, Visual Design, and CMF. She brings a human-centered approach to her work, grounded in the belief that designers hold the power to drive cultural change, enhance the quality of life, and address the world's most pressing issues. Qin has helped bring designs to market for AI & robotics, health & wellness, consumer electronics and many other categories, serving clients that range from Fortune 500 companies to start-ups, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs. Her designs have earned recognition including Gold and a Special Award from IDEA for the SNOO bassinet and Ori Living, TIME Magazine's 100 Best Inventions of 2020 for a smart bot, Moxie, designed for Embodied, and numerous other awards and honors.

Moxie, an AI-equipped, smart companion for kids, by fuseproject for Embodied

If Qin has concerns about the future of the industry, they involve people undervaluing the importance of design or considering it a superficial process that addresses only aesthetic concerns. "In reality, design surpasses aesthetics," she said. "It involves extensive research to understand complex problems, users, and their contexts. It demands empathy, understanding and compassion."

To those who might question whether AI technology could replace the human ingenuity involved in design work, Qin emphasizes the designer's role in "strategizing solutions, collaborating with experts, dedicating hours to ideation, sketching and innovating, building mockups and prototypes to enable usability, improve ergonomics, address real-life problems, and ensure the design intent was followed through in the engineering and manufacturing process."

As a juror for the Core77 Design Awards, Qin hopes to see entrants submit novel ideas that "go beyond merely emulating successful designs and, instead, are inventive, intentionally crafted solutions that strive to create a better world." She also encourages submissions that consider sustainability with respect to manufacturing and longevity. "I look forward to seeing thoughtful designs that enrich everyday life and embrace environmental responsibility."

In Qin's experience, design done well is a long journey that demands hard work and persistence. But she finds that journey worth the effort. As she said, "Recognizing and respecting the true value of design is crucial for fostering a culture built on innovation, empathy, and a collective vision of a richer, more equitable, and more sustainable tomorrow."

Last year's Core77 Design Awards winner in Consumer Tech was the Dexcom G7 Continuous Glucose Monitoring System, a wearable technology that measures and sends glucose numbers to a user's phone or Dexcom receiver for real-time management.

The 2023 winner in the AV, Photography Equipment category was the SEAVU Explorer by Paraform, an underwater live-stream and videography platform.

If you've got a novel project with potential for transformative impact, enter it in the Core77 Design Awards today.