Core77

Guest post by Ashley Thorfinnson, Sahar Ghaheri, and Robbie Patrick.

The second annual Better World by Design conference took place this past weekend in Providence, RI, organized and run by students from Brown and RISD. Participants and presenters alike gathered under the common goal of fostering relationships and sharing ideas that will positively impact our lives, communities, and environments. The diverse and young community of attendees kept the weekend inspiring, but this often limited the conference discourse to an introductory level. Still, the biggest topics were human-centered design and cross-disciplinary collaboration--good frameworks for any kind of discussion around social change.

Keynote speaker Jan Chipchase brought the importance of human-centered research and design to the forefront, speaking openly about the process of his design research methodology. As the principal engineer at the Nokia Research Center, Chipchase revealed that his interests lie in places on the edge of the known system, allowing him to learn from the people who are not intrinsically involved in the technologies that he represents. From his teams' extensive immersive research, he gave examples of subtle physical manifestations of the cultural identities. Despite the intriguing slices of street-level culture, however, his IP restrictions wouldn't allow him to drive home his points with specific design applications.

Other speakers throughout the weekend emphasized the importance of designing in context and in the communities in which they are working. Emily Pilloton, founder of Project H, emphasized designing "with, not for" as a crucial tenant of her organization. She presented the Mexico City chapter's Furniture For Rural Schools project that worked in nearby schools to involve the community and students in the transformation of old, broken furniture into new school desks. By working to design solutions locally before looking internationally, Project H's work was one of few examples at the conference that emphasized the "importance of not forgetting one's own backyard."

Emeka Okafor of Maker Faire Africa and Kipp Bradford of Make Magazine and Maker Faire Rhode Island held a "Maker to Maker" lunch to discuss the value of cross-pollination, and the importance of bringing professional makers and side-of-the-road builders into the same arena.

A panel on Medical Design, featuring Dr. Jonathan M. Spector from Impact Pediatrics International, highlighted the malnutrition diagnostic systems called M.U.A.C. that measure the circumference of the upper arm of children under the age of five. M.U.A.C consists of a color-coded armband that identifies severely underfed children for immediate attention. The system exemplifies simple, low-tech designs that thrive in remote communities.

Niti Bhan, founder of the Emerging Futures Lab, turns her economic knowledge to a systems design approach. She is working to creating viable economic systems within "bottom of the pyramid" emerging markets. Bhan's project, The Prepaid Economy, aims to negotiate the application of economic business principles of the developed world to the irregular, unpredictable incomes of the developing world.

As a software developer, Ken Banks created an open source tool that can be utilized by communities and designers alike to produce a wide variety of bottom-up design solutions. Since Banks last spoke at A Better World By Design in '08, Frontline SMS has expanded its user base with 3,000 downloads to NGO's. Banks detailed some of the new projects that his technology has inspired and aided. Most notably, Stanford student Josh Nesbitt used FrontlineSMS to link patients in remote areas with local hospitals, creating a user-generated 911 system.

Cross-disciplinary collaboration was the buzzword for this year's conference, and given the number of non-designers in attendance, it was apt. Again and again, speakers and panelists confirmed that cross-disciplinary work is crucial for the realization and implementation of socially-minded design ideas.

Cross-disciplinary design took on some new dimension with regard to grants and funding. INDEX, founded and operated by Kigge Hvid, supports, encourages, and promotes Designs to Improve Life with the largest annual financial award offered to designers, and in her remarks, Hvid proclaimed that "we won" because businesses are recognizing the value of design and are lining up to work with designers. One might ask, however, where the partnership is heading? Will business be in service of design, or design in the service of business?

There were a huge number of non-designers at the conference; students came from many disciplines--enticed by the theme, while engineers, industry professionals and business people were drawn by the big name names. In a lively 1-hour design challenge, Core77 united conference-goers by asking them to re-imagine The Next TV Dinner. The open-ended design brief energized the conference and created much hallway chatter.

In his closing remarks, RISD's (very-public) head John Maeda walked the audience through a series of entertaining life observations, stories and anecdotes that not only captured the spirit of the conference, but propelled it in a whole new direction. After 3 days worth of inspiring projects and ventures initiated by people working largely within the creative sphere, he reminded us that designers are just one segment of society tackling these daunting issues—scientists, economists, policy-makers, and all manner of experts are approaching the same problems from a different perspective. The real question is not what can design-thinking contribute to the greater good, but how can it's status be elevated in the public domain to be taken seriously by politicians and global organizations who can effect real change in a very direct and large scale way.

The grassroots student effort that founded and continues to run this conference is incredibly inspiring, and everyone was looking forward to attending the Better World by Design Conference again next fall, with the hope of engaging in critical discussions that will challenge and advance the field of design for the greater good.