The sort of challenges these design leaders address range from everyday difficulties in achieving or maintaining a healthy life to highly sophisticated responses to serious illness, large-scale catastrophes, effects of climate change and potentially devastating accidents.

For a third time, INDEX has presented the world's largest monetary award in design, a total 500,000 euros, to the creators of extensively juried designs intended to improve life.

More than 700 initial entries were put forward for INDEX:Award 2009. In an exhaustive process of comparative evaluation, debate and research, the international INDEX jury of design specialists selected the best of them for presentation in the exhibition.

The result demonstrates the scope of the field of design and its great potential. This is reflected in the five INDEX: categories of Body, Home, Work, Play and Community, encompassing everything from a single person's physical experience to comprehensive initiatives in society.

The exhibition represents the work of the 69 finalists for INDEX:Award 2009, telling the personal stories behind the designs.The exhibited designs challenge the traditional concepts and stereotypes of design and highlight the complexity of the design field, demonstrating very different solutions to problems such as HIV/AIDS, scarcity of drinking water, and carbon emissions.