Neebone cradle by Nido Educa gets German Design Award 2017

The nursery school  Escuela Infantil Nido (Nido Educa) has just won an award at the German Design Award 2017 for its 'Neebone' changing cradle.

Developed by the Spanish company’s RDI department, it competed in the furniture and accessories category. The cradle features optimum bed-base tilt for better digestion and breathing to help prevent baby colic. The base can also be raised, turning it into the safest baby changer on the market with safety features on all four sides to stop baby from falling off. “You just can’t be too careful when it comes to infant safety”, states CEO José María Artiaga.

Artiaga explains that the cradle’s design and development is a result of the brand’s daily experience looking after kids at the Nido nursery school. “When you work with kids, you find out what parents and child-care professionals really need. What we’ve done is transfer our school’s integral care-and-quality approach to business innovation. We’re not industrialists or engineers. Our innovation and development department is simply an extension of what we do at our school. It’s designed to look after kids even better”, he adds.

The German Design Award 2017, which is presented to design and innovation projects, is run by the German Ministry for Economics and Technology and the Frankfurt Chamber of Industry and Commerce. Nido’s project was chosen from a total of 4,200 entries from all over the world. Only winners of a previous international innovation award can apply, and the Neebone cradle had already won Gold Medal at the 2011 International Invention Fair of the Middle East (IIFME) held in Kuwait and was also successful at Kind & Jugend 2015, Cologne’s global baby and toddler fair.

The Nido nursery school is a family firm, founded in 1975.  It belongs to the Spanish Technological Institute for Children’s Products and Leisure  AIJU  and over the years has teamed up with many different companies designing new kids’ products. Its RDI department – now a spin-off from the parent company called Nidoergonomic – is currently in talks with companies in Austria, Germany and Switzerland to distribute Neebone across Europe, and in the United Arab Emirates and China. All the software and components that went into the changing cradle were ordered from Spanish companies. Diverse national organisations have expressed an interest in buying the product, which is now ready for manufacture and launch.