Inma Bermúdez, the creator of the 'FollowMe' lamp, wins the National Design Award

The designer Inma Bermúdez in her studio in Cheste (Valencia), next to the lmá`for Followme, designed by her, in an image from three years ago.Monica Torres

Inma Bermúdez always liked to draw.

As a child, she imagined what her dream room could look like and she would draw it, including all the furniture and the smallest detail.

She also enjoyed disemboweling watches to see what was inside her.

"Typical of very curious children who want to see how things work," she says, now 45 years old.

It is consistent, therefore, that she was born in Murcia, although she soon moved to Valencia, she studied Technical Engineering in Industrial Design and later dedicated herself to design.

Now comes the recognition of the work of a person who has achieved the happy coincidence that her vocation (in this case, very early) coincides with her professional performance.

Today it was announced that Inma Bermúdez has been distinguished with the 2022 National Award for Innovation and Design in the category of Professionals,

The jury praised the "career of creative honesty and commitment to environmental and social sustainability" of a professional who "has managed to rise as a new benchmark for Spanish design on the international scene, preserving the imprint of her feminine gaze and her identity Mediterranean”.

“I think that this award, and I say it for myself, is for us women to believe it more, that we also deserve it, because many times we are guilty of having little ego, of being less alert than men.

We women need to encourage ourselves more.

For this reason, I also want to thank the people who are close to me and who encouraged me to present myself, because I had not contemplated it”, acknowledges the designer by phone, while

numerous congratulatory messages enter her on

lamp with rechargeable battery

, from the firm Marset, of which more than 100,000 units have been sold.

He has also signed various designs for the multinational Ikea, with which he continues to collaborate today, after doing internships and working in Sweden.

He returned to Valencia in 2007 when he accepted the proposal from fellow designer Jaime Hayon to participate in the Lladró modernization process.

She and she set up her own studio Inma Bermúdez and a sustainable country house in Cheste, 30 kilometers from Valencia, with her partner, the architect Moritz Krefter.

Bermúdez is satisfied that the jury has underlined "her commitment to innovate through new processes and the development of materials that are more respectful of the environment and society, at a time when the materiality of everyday objects must be fully in tune with the sustainable development goals”.

“For some time I have been very sensitive to sustainability.

Designers can provide solutions to important problems that the whole society suffers.

Solve problems from another point of view.

Like now at work with the Dominio de la Vega winery, which wants to be 100% sustainable,” says the professional, who studied with a scholarship in Germany and did internships at the Vitra workshops in France.

The announcement of this award coincides with the celebration of Valencia.

World Design Capital 2022. This modality for Professionals is endowed with 50,000 euros, as is the National Innovation Award in the Small and Medium Enterprise modality.

This year, this award has gone to Galician Marine Instruments, an innovative company in the traditional fishing sector and a leader in the marketing of buoys for tuna fishing.

The National Prize for the Young Designers category, with an amount of 30.00 euros, went to Alba González Álvarez for highlighting "the ability of design to provide solutions and intervene transversally in areas as complex as biomedicine and the development of biomechanical prostheses, in perfect communion with researchers, innovators and multidisciplinary teams in which design plays a central role in improving people's health and lives”, according to the Ministry's note.

The rest of the prizes are honorary, without financial endowment.

The 2022 National Innovation Award in the Large Company modality has gone to the Spanish multinational SACYR, "for establishing an ambitious business model for the coming decades, which bases its pillars on innovation and a new vision of the deployment of infrastructures and services ”.

Rocío Arroyo Arranz has been awarded in Innovation in the Innovative Career modality, for her “dazzling professional career of more than 20 years as an innovative scientist, researcher and businesswoman in the application of disruptive technologies for the prevention and early detection of cancer”.

The 2022 National Design Award in the Companies category has gone to the Basque furniture firm Enea, in recognition of a four-decade career as a solid national and international benchmark in furniture design.

Servicios Digitales de Aragón (SDA) has received a mention in Design 2022 in the Professional modality, as has Emilio García García, in the Innovative Career modality as a reference "in the development of highly innovative technologies and solutions" in the railway sector.

The Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant, has underlined that this is the edition with the most women awarded, according to the ministerial press release.