R-Zero Arc Lands Bronze in 2021 International Design Excellence Awards

R-Zero, the first biosafety technology company dedicated to creating safer, healthier indoor spaces, today announced its flagship product, Arc, has been recognized as a Bronze winner for Health & Medical in the 2021 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA). Produced by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), the 2021 edition of the prestigious IDEA program received the most entries in its 41-year history. Of these 2,087 entries from 25 countries, 234 designs were related to COVID-19.

Widely viewed as the most influential design awards program in North America, IDEA considers design innovation, benefit to users and benefit to society as part of its judging criteria. R-Zero's Arc attained the Medical & Health Bronze award for its innovative and human-centric industrial design approach to hospital-grade UV-C disinfection. Launched in September 2020, Arc is the first IoT enabled, whole-room, UV disinfection device designed for dynamic environments outside of a hospital. Based on a highly efficient radial lamp design, the easy-to-operate device makes hospital-grade UV disinfection financially and operationally accessible to every organization and community, for the first time.

Unlike existing UV-C systems considered the gold standard in hospitals, Arc was designed from the ground up with the end-user in mind. Every element of the product was considered from a visual, functional and technical perspective. The result is an intuitive and human-centric design that gives Arc a sense of both optimism and approachability, ultimately allowing it to blend seamlessly into any environment. From large, locking casters to ensure ease of mobility throughout a facility, low center of gravity to prevent tipping, and a simple "push button" user interface - Arc's intuitive design has enabled a technology previously reserved for hospitals, to be successful and easy to implement across every type of commercial space - from schools, to senior care facilities, sports venues, hotels, restaurants, offices - large and small - and everything in between.

R-Zero's strategic design partner, Bould Design, led industrial design of the product, bringing critical-need safety-enabling technology to market in just five months.

"We designed Arc from the ground up, to empower organizations to take control of their environmental safety and well-being in these challenging times," said Fred Bould, Principal and Founder of Bould Design. "We were determined to make Arc the most accessible and intuitive enterprise grade UV-C disinfection lamp on the planet. The striking and optimistic design expresses R-Zero's commitment to science, health, and safety, while maintaining an easy to maneuver and operate form factor. The R-Zero team deserves a lot of credit for their willingness to embrace the design process and sweat the details."

Arc's powerful UV-C is proven to destroy 99.99% of surface and airborne pathogens [in 1,000 sq ft space] in just 7 minutes - without the use of chemicals, while IoT connectivity shares usage data in real time, providing organizations with a first-of-its-kind auditable trail of all disinfection activity. Setting the standard for intelligent and sustainable disinfection, Arc displaces harmful chemicals, while successfully resetting air and surfaces in any space - in minutes.

"When we first conceived of Arc, we knew we had an opportunity to not only rewrite the narrative around UV-C, but fundamentally change how society approaches the health and safety of shared indoor spaces - truly iconic products have the power to catalyze a paradigm shift, and that was our intention with Arc" said Grant Morgan, CEO and co-founder of R-Zero. "In partnership with Bould Design, we've successfully built a product that not only delivers greater efficacy than the legacy systems used in hospitals, but ultimately create a category-defining product that is enabling a higher standard of health and safety for millions of people across the country today. And we did it in five months."

R-Zero has demonstrated there is a massive market for more effective, efficient, and sustainable methods of creating safer indoor environments. Today, the company is emerging as a world leader in delivering innovative biosafety technologies to address glaring gaps in society's health protections against COVID-19, and all other common infectious diseases in the built environment.

About R-Zero

R-Zero is the first biosafety technology company dedicated to making the indoor spaces we share, safer and clinically clean. Founded to help organizations protect the health of people they serve, R-Zero is dedicated to developing the most effective and innovative disinfection technologies, to reduce the spread of all infectious diseases. R-Zero's first product, Arc [an IoT-enabled, whole-room UV disinfection device] is currently enabling a higher level of health safety for hundreds of thousands of people, across both public and private sector organizations, without the use of chemicals. Today, R-Zero is pioneering the first continuous, automated disinfection ecosystem, enabling every organization to measure and manage indoor health with a level of sophistication and ease that until now, has not existed. Informed by data science, built with AI, ML, and IoT connected hardware, R-Zero's intelligent biosafety platform provides greater visibility, automation, and even smarter risk reduction within the indoor spaces where people spend their time. R-Zero is backed by leading venture capital firms, DBL Partners, World Innovation Lab, SOSV/HAX, as well as thought-leaders from the health, hospitality, sports, commercial real estate, impact, and other industries. For more information, visit www.rzero.com

Bould Design

Bould Design was founded in 1995 by Fred Bould with the vision of creating functional, beautiful products through seamlessly merging the industrial design and engineering disciplines. Having started as a solo operation, Bould Design has grown steadily to a team of eighteen people, with designers Anson Cheung and Jeremy Wolf joining as partners in 2016. Located in Silicon Valley, the studio has developed an authoritative expertise in designing smart products for both the home and commercial spaces. Bould Design has been a design partner to some of the most innovative companies in the world that look to fulfill technology's promise of enabling people to lead more comfortable, productive, and meaningful lives. Notable clients and projects include the Nest Thermostat, Roku Streaming Players, and Eero WiFi Systems. Bould Design products are used by millions of people worldwide every day at home, at work, and in industry. For more information, visit https://www.bould.com/

About The International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA)

IDEA is a premier international design competition, recognizing and promoting excellence across a wide array of industries and disciplines, including commercial products, entertainment, home goods, social impact designs and student designs. Gold, Silver and Bronze winners are recognized. Winning entries receive worldwide press and are housed in a permanent collection at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. For more information, visit IDSA.org/IDEA.