DBACE AWARD
On July 6th 2023 United in Design was announced as a winner of a prestigious DBACE award. Alex Dauley, Janet Morgan-Smith and Clare Cowburn Baker attended a glitzy award ceremony at the Royal Society of Arts to be presented with their prize alongside the other winners.
What are the DBACE Awards?
DBACE is an award set up by Deutsche Bank to support visionary businesses and change makers and leaders in creative industries who are driven by a mission to build and sustain social value through their enterprise.
DBACE aims to support excellence, develop the work of the award winners to reach their next milestones and further their positive impact.
MeWe360 run the program for DBACE and is a black-led, not-for-profit that champions Black and Asian and minority ethnic entrepreneurs in the arts. They are inclusive in their approach because they feel this best serves their mission in striving for a more equitable and representative sector and this stance chimes perfectly with the approach and mission of United in Design to increase diversity and inclusion in the UK Interior Design industry.
The awards ceremony
The awards started with an inspirational speech from MeWe CEO Louise Nkosi, who started her speech by quoting Angela Davis:
‘You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.’
Louise continued:
‘It is this message of abundance, hope and tenacity – of belief in the power to make a difference that is represented so strongly by the hundreds of social entrepreneurs the DBACE team met, across the country, as part of the many outreach activities leading up to the application deadline.’
The award ceremony was hosted by Brenda Emmanus OBE. Brenda was awarded an OBE in 2019 for her services to broadcasting and diversity and amongst other many high profile roles she is a patron of the Black Women’s Network and chair of the board of Trustees for Sir Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures Dance Company.
Brenda opened proceedings and said,
‘Building creativity into business allows us to meet existing societal challenges while progressively forging ahead with new and innovative ideas.
Nurturing and supporting creative entrepreneurs will ensure a future where we are inspired, where existing norms are challenged, where new opportunities are created and problems solved.
By encouraging and celebrating this collective of talent we can afford to imagine a world where we’ll witness progress in the lives of communities and wider society – a better world for all of us.’
Brenda then introduced Farooq Chaudry OBE as the keynote speaker for the evening who looked back on his time in the world of dance and his enormous success with the Akram Khan Dance Company. He shared his three rules for success:
Surround yourself with people who are smarter and more creative than you because this is what will allow you to grow.
Start any project with a set of unattainable wishes.
Take risks to make those unattainable wishes attainable.
The winners
United in Design was one of the winners of the 2023 DBACE awards along with:
As well as a bursary of £10,000 the DBACE award offers business support and mentoring for 12 months to help United in Design to grow and improve in every area of what we do. The prospects for United in Design in 2023/24 are very exciting indeed.
Thanks to everyone at DBACE and MeWe360 who are taking United in Design onto this journey of learning and discovery for a bigger and better future in the Interior Design industry.
