Design Thinking Roundtable ERA Chair in Social Innovation @ Nova SBE

Sara Camnasio is a multi-disciplinary designer and researcher focused on government (public services), science, and climate projects. Her work
spans from integrating design mindsets into environmental and conservation projects, creating educational curricula to engage students on STEAM topics, to helping improve public and private services and products.  After spending 5 years conducting Astrophysics research at the American Museum of Natural History and at telescopes around the world for 5 years, Sara decided to dive into design to apply design thinking methods to science and conservation projects. She’s been a National
Geographic Explorer since 2015, and through this community, she has led and co-led several international projects focused on conservation and environmental education. Currently, she is helping grow Human-centered design and co-design practices at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in the US Federal Government. She also runs the Sonoma County Feminist Bird Club – a growing community of friendly bird nerds who care about the outdoors and social justice.


In this episode, Sara explains how she combines in her work service design with participatory approaches to help people engage more deeply and more consciously with the world around them. She stresses how design shapes all our interactions – with objects, technology, humans, and nature, and therefore has a role to play in addressing issues we are facing like climate change. We discussed how design can help translate complexity and identify and frame what problem to solve, and the role of the designer as a facilitator and storyteller. Sara emphasizes the need for designers to think of unintended consequences and be reflexive about their practice; design being in the end a deeply political practice.



To learn more about Sara's work, check her website: https://www.saracamnasio.com/

Follow her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saracamnasio/



Credits:

Conception, host and production: Anne-Laure Fayard

Sound design & Post-production: Claudio Silva

Music & Art Work: Guilhem Tamisier

Isaac is the founder of Mideva Labs - a research, design and innovation consultancy studio based in Nairobi Kenya, and a co-founder of Idea Studio Africa - a community-powered learning, skills development and apprenticeship studio helping young professionals build meaningful career pathways in innovation and
entrepreneurship. Isaac previously co-founded the Africa YES Program - a 6-month leadership and entrepreneurship accelerator program for young social entrepreneurs in Kenya, which has supported over 80 entrepreneurs to launch social ventures since 2019.

Isaac has over 8 years of experience working in the design, social innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem across Africa and supporting initiatives around the world, including working for openIDEO - IDEO’s open innovation platform that supported innovators across the globe to solve some of the biggest world’s challenges.

Isaac has a passion for designing with and working with communities and young people to achieve impact and is interested in exploring ways to rethink learning and in investment in young people and their ideas for a better future.



Isaac was the Spring 2023 Social Innovator in Residence with the ERA Chair in Social Innovation and the DESIS Lab at NOVA SBE.



Follow Isaac on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacjumba/

Twitter: @Isaacjumba



 Conception, host and production: Anne-Laure Fayard

Sound design & Post-production: Claudio Silva

Music: Guilhem Tamisier

Art work: Guilhem Tamisier

The Podcast was recorded and produced in the Fidelidade Creative Studio @ Nova SBE

 

Harmonie Coleman is a Senior Community Engagement Manager at IDEO.org. In this role, she collaborates closely with design teams, partners, and local community members to advance equitable practices in design research and community co-design methods across the organization. She specializes in designing transformative experiences, healing-centered facilitation, participatory design methods, and recruiting community members with lived experience. Her past experiences as a teacher and community organizer both deepen her expertise and ground her current work and interests. Harmonie has a Master of Education from Harvard University and a Bachelor in Psychology and Race and Difference Studies from Emory University.

In this episode, Harmonie shared her views on community and intentional relationship building, and stressed the need to move from transactive interactions to intentional relationship. She illustrated the value of intentional relationship building by sharing two projects she worked on with families and youth who have been impacted by the child welfare system. She discussed how the distinctions between participatory design, community design and co-design were not necessarily generative. Instead, she invites us to focus on the "how" and practice, rather than the labels. Last, we discussed adrienne maree brown's work and how the notion of emergent strategy informs Harmonie's work.

I asked Harmonie to share some recommended readings:

Thick, Tressie McMillan CottomThe Art of Gathering, Priya ParkerEmergent Strategy, adrienne maree brownHow We Show Up, Mia BirdsongHolding Change, adrienne maree brownAbolishing the Cop in Your [Designer's] Head, Sarah Fathallah and A.D. Sean Lewis https://designmuseumfoundation.org/abolish-the-cop-inside-your-designers-head/

Read Harmonie's essay "On Community": https://www.ideo.org/perspective/on-community-harmonie-coleman

Follow her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harmonie-coleman-a42b25155/



Credits:

Conception, host and production: Anne-Laure Fayard

Sound design & Post-production: Claudio Silva

Music & Art Work: Guilhem Tamisier

Ezio Manzini  is one of the world's leading and provocative thinkers in design for sustainability and social innovation — considered a major driver of sustainable changes. These two joint interests led him to start DESIS: an international network of schools of design specifically active in the field of design for social innovation and sustainability. Currently, Ezio is President of DESIS Network and Honorary Professor at the Politecnico di Milano. He has been guest professor in several design schools world-wide such as Elisava-Design School and Engineering (Barcelona), Tongji University (Shanghai), University of the Arts (London), CPUT (Cape town), and Parsons - The new School for Design (NYC). Ezio has written many books and papers on service design and social innovation. His most recent books are: 'Design, When Everybody Designs', 'Politics of the Everyday’ and lately 'Livable Proximity’.

In this episode, Ezio invites us to reimagine the role of design in building a sustainable and resilient world. In particular, he talks about how our contemporary society has become a “careless society” and how design can help create conditions that afford care and nurture relations. He highlights the complex relation between care and proximity and based on his most recent book, discusses the notion of livable proximity and how a city that cares look like. Finally, he discusses the notion of social innovation, and stresses that if there is value in emergent, bottom-up social innovation, we need to nurture them and that this requires a new type of social infrastructure.

To learn more about DESIS: https://www.desisnetwork.org/

Credits:

Conception, host and production: Anne-Laure Fayard

Sound design & Post-production: Claudio Silva

Music & Art Work: Guilhem Tamisier

Bon Ku is an emergency physician, professor and host of the Design Lab podcast. He is the Assistant Dean for Health and Design and leads the Medicine+Design initiatives at Thomas Jefferson University. As the Director of the Health Design Lab, he created the first design thinking program at a medical school. Bon is creating design-minded solutions to improve patient health. Bon co-wrote the book, Health Design Thinking, with Ellen Lupton and was a regular panelist on the primetime medical TV show Chasing the Cure with Ann Curry. In this episode, Bon talks about the role of design and prototyping in the development of products and services for better health care. He discusses medical education and design and explains how the Health Design Lab empowers future doctors to redesign healthcare services, physical spaces and medical devices. Bon stresses the need for more creativity in medical education and medicine. We also talk about collaboration and co-creation and how essential it is to design a better health system.

To learn more about Bon's work: https://linktr.ee/bonku

Listen to his podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/pt/podcast/design-lab-with-bon-ku/id1529983261

Follow him on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbonku/

Credits:

Conception, host and production: Anne-Laure Fayard

Sound design & Post-production: Claudio Silva

Music & Art Work: Guilhem Tamisier

In this episode, our guest was Laetitia Wolff,  a creative strategist, design curator, published author, and self-described cultural engineer and the former director of strategic initiatives at AIGA in NY. Laetitia lives, works and teaches in the South of France following 20+ years spent in New York. She consults and creates projects that generate new discourses, meaningful practices and experiences using design as a tool for social change, impact, and innovation. She brings design to cities, through research-action projects, curated programs, and citizen engagement initiatives. She teaches at Besign, The Sustainable Design School, design impact and partnership-based courses to imagine the creative strategies for tomorrow’s territories.

In our conversation, Laetitia shared her perspective about design as a tool for social change, impact and innovation and how her design work focused on cities understood as an intertwinement of spatial, social and relational dimensions. She stressed the importance of multi-disciplinary approaches and of multi-stakeholder engagement. Laetitia shared her passion for amplifying the voices of individuals and communities who are unheard. Last, all her projects illustrated the value of learning by doing.

To learn more about Laetitia's work: https://www.laetitiawolff.design/

Follow her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laetitia-wolff-31a6193/

Credits:

Conception, host and production: Anne-Laure Fayard

Sound design & Post-production: Claudio Silva

Music: Guilhem Tamisier

Art work: Guilhem Tamisier