23 July 2024 鈥 Celebrating 13 years of Innovation by Design, the 2024 honorees include nearly 500 projects, products, and services from Pentagram, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Canva, and others.
The 探花精选 and Sesame Workshop's Ahlan Simsim initiative was honoured in Fast Company鈥檚 Innovation by Design Awards for 2024 in the Best Design - Europe, Middle East and Africa category.
The Innovation by Design Awards, which can be found in the Summer 2024 issue of Fast Company, honour the designers and businesses solving the most crucial problems of today and anticipating the pressing issues of tomorrow. The competition, now in its 13th year, features a range of blue-chip companies, emerging startups, and promising young talent. It is one of the most sought-after design awards in the industry.
Launched in 2018, Ahlan Simsim鈥or 鈥淲elcome Sesame鈥 in Arabic鈥攊s a transformational initiative from the 探花精选 and , the global impact nonprofit behind Sesame Street, to bring early childhood development and playful learning to children affected by conflict and crisis in the Middle East. Ahlan Simsim reaches children and families wherever they are鈥攆rom classrooms, health clinics, and learning centres to TVs and mobile devices鈥攖hrough integrating direct services for families with award-winning educational media, including a locally produced version of Sesame Street. As the single largest early childhood intervention in the history of humanitarian response, Ahlan Simsim serves as a model for addressing the profound needs of children affected by conflict and crisis.
Ahlan Simsim is catalysing lasting change, designing for sustainability, embedding programs into national systems for long-term impact and influencing national, regional and global policies. To date, Ahlan Simsim has reached over 3 million children via programs in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria and 29 million children have watched Ahlan Simsim, the Arabic-language version of Sesame Street. An 11-week Remote Early Learning program yielded educational results on par with a year of in-person preschool, opening new possibilities for how we provide early learning to children who cannot access in-person preschool, or to bridge gaps in early education when crisis hits.
鈥淲e are honoured to receive recognition from Fast Company for our Ahlan Simsim initiative. This recognition reflects the 探花精选 and Sesame Workshop鈥檚 joint commitment to making a positive impact on the lives of children and caregivers across the Middle East. With levels of humanitarian need reaching unprecedented heights across the region, the message of Ahlan Simsim is that there鈥檚 big impact to be had at scale,鈥 said David Miliband, President and CEO of the 探花精选.
鈥淭his year鈥檚 honorees show how essential creativity is to the process of innovation,鈥 said Brendan Vaughan, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. 鈥淚t鈥檚 inspiring to see how some of the best minds across industries are using design to shape our world for the better.鈥
The judges include renowned designers from a variety of disciplines, business leaders from some of the most innovative companies in the world, and Fast Company鈥檚 own writers and editors. Entries are judged on the key ingredients of innovation: functionality, originality, beauty, sustainability, user insight, cultural impact, and business impact.
Winners, finalists, and honourable mentions are featured online, and winners and finalists are featured in the summer issue of Fast Company magazine, on newsstands July 30, 2024.
To see the complete list, go to .