Creating the future we actually want.

at the start of this year

i was running a workshop on sustainable

innovation inspired by nature

this workshop was for master students in

product design

and it was part of a bigger assignment

from the school which had a special

requirement

the students had to project themselves

50 years from now

and create two radically different

designs they were solving the same

problem

naturally the students had to create a

scenario to imagine the society from

2070

and in order to create two very

different solutions

they thought they would create two

extreme scenarios

one would be a utopia and the other one

a dystopia

the day they presented their designs and

the process they concluded that they had

actually ended up creating two dystopias

now this is a problem because if

designers

cannot imagine a better future for us

then we’re in pretty bad shape

i don’t blame them though this is

something that we’re all struggling with

for one failure is easier to imagine

failure we know we can achieve success

however

requires a lot of effort a lot of

imagination and creativity

and it evolves a lot of uncertainties as

well

creating a positive vision and

sustaining it in the face of adversity

requires courage and grit

if you look around you the news the

movies and series

a lot of the media we’re exposed to is

playing on our fears

stimulating our primitive survival

instincts

our lizard brain instead of inspiring us

and creating

a positive mindset we need to change our

mindsets to create better designs

and for that we need to tell better

stories

we need narratives that focus on what

can be done

on positive visions and possibilities

rather than painting how bad things are

or could become

along the same lines trans have received

an incredible amount of focus

and have a tendency to decide what we

invest in and what we’re designed for

somehow along the way it seems we have

forgotten how to think

critically and question those trends

and more importantly ask what future do

we wish for

what is the future you want to see

you have to design for this because if

you don’t

trends become self-fulfilling prophecies

rather than framing

how things could evolve and many trends

depict a future that we don’t even want

so question trends tell better stories

design the future you dream of

we are all designers there is a famous

designer victor papanek

who said that we’re all designers

because the mere act of planning for a

desired goal

is at the heart of the design process

we all have the responsibility and

ability

to design the future we would like to

live in

and to do so to be effective designers

of the future

we need to hone our empathy skills

empathy is a muscle that we need to

train more and better

it allows us to better understand the

effects of what we do

on the rest of the system we belong to

empathy allows us to understand our

place in our ecosystem

it allows us to relate to others and to

our environment

it is an essential skill for handling

complexity and we all know our world has

become a lot more complex

so i think we need some sort of a new

renaissance

we need to revisit what we know from a

different angle

and change the paradigm we need to break

down silos

and build empathy for fields other than

the ones we specialize in

if we are to build a better future with

a circular economy

or even better a regenerative one then

it is absolutely essential

that we understand how others function

how other parts of the system operate

how we interact with each other how we

influence

each other so we can create better

solutions

back in the days people like leonardo da

vinci were polymath

you find their works in arts physics

biology

or technology they had a deeper

understanding of many fields

rather than specializing in just one

and to some extent this is something we

need to get back to

we need to break down silos and learn to

better think in systems

now unlike what happened in the previous

renaissance

the new paradigm we will build should

reconnect us

with nature rather than placing us above

it

or outside of it after all

we humans are nature too we belong to it

and we need to better understand our

place in it in order to improve the

current situation

there is a lot of wisdom in nature and

we ought to look at it

more often and get inspired by it to

solve our problems

sustainable innovation inspired by

nature is also called biomimicry

simply put biomimicry means mimicking

life

it’s about looking at nature and

extracting its wisdom

to try and solve challenges in a

sustainable way

and in many ways nature should be our

reference

what would it look like if we could

harness the sun’s energy

the way nature does with photosynthesis

transforming co2 and water into usable

energy

by only using biodegradable and

renewable components

artificial photosynthesis is on its way

not yet with biodegradable components

though

here’s another interesting example did

you know

that nature still holds the record for

the toughest ceramics out there

there is a sea snail called abalone that

creates its shell

from elements surrounding it in the

water

it builds it at ambient temperature and

that shell

is a ceramic that is twice as tough as

our most technical ones

and ours require mining and far more

energy to produce

so how about we make nature our

benchmark for our designs

biomimicry is not always complicated and

i’ll give you a simple example

millions of birds die every year from

crashing into windows

because they see a prolongation of the

sky in their reflection

orni lux is a product that is solving

this problem

through a simple biomimetic application

did you know that spiders weave into

their webs a chemical that is highly uv

reflective

well it turns out that birds see uv

light

and that makes the spider webs highly

visible to them

and therefore they don’t crash in them

and don’t destroy them

ornillux windows are inspired from this

they consist of an added layer with a uv

reflective pattern on it

so that birds don’t crash into the

windows while we

not seeing uv light still see through

the window

as if it was a regular one

another smart implementation from

nature’s wisdom is

chocolate a synthetic surface which

tackles the problem

of bacterial growth the product is

inspired from shark skin

scientists were wondering why some very

slow-moving sharks

did not get any organisms growing on

their skin

they found out it was due to a

structural pattern on the skin

that makes it uncomfortable for bacteria

and other organisms

to grow on it and chocolate is using a

similar pattern

that can be applied on surfaces in

hospitals for instance

to avoid germs growth

aside from products there is a lot we

can learn from nature

about organizations and leadership

we can for instance look at how

effective superorganisms like bees and

ant colonies function

or they can take inspiration from the

ballot of starlings

those birds that gracefully dance in the

skies with thousands of individuals

flying close to each other without ever

crashing

and no leader structuring the group

some of the principles behind those

super organisms

are at the core of the extreme

efficiency of companies like bertsoch

a neighborhood nurses organization in

the netherlands

that counts over 15 000 nurses and not a

single manager

as you see there is much to learn from

nature

and biomimicry is an essential tool to

not only create

better solutions but also better

narratives

we all naturally attracted by nature

fascinated by it

when we’re in nature we get a sense of

well-being

we just need to learn to reconnect with

it

in a workshop with some other design

students

i started the session by asking them to

close their eyes and imagine their life

30 years from now i wanted them to

picture how they dreamed it would look

like

how they would want to live when they

share their vision

guess how many mention anything related

to technology

zero many refer to slow living and being

close to nature

so how about we use technology as an

enabler

of the future we want as something that

actually supports

our well-being rather than something we

use to pursue some vain goals

forgetting about the bigger picture

are three things i would like you to

take away from this talk

one tell better stories challenge trends

change the narrative to make it positive

two build more empathy

not only because it’s good for society

but also because this skill

allows us to better handle complexity

and thinking systems

three reconnect with nature and learn

from it

solve your challenges now

go out and create the future you

actually want to live in

thank you

you