Marco Steinberg, Strategic Design Director

Large-scale challenges such as climate change, healthcare, and aging demographics, just to mention a few, are eroding the very foundation upon which our societies were built. Though the world is thriving with knowledge, innovation, and goodwill, there is very little substantive, positive-sum progress at this scale, on these fronts. Because traditional models of innovation have always focused on the part, thus far we have not been able to transition our capabilities to address our challenge of the whole. In other words, when confronted with a major challenge, we fail to see the “architecture of the problem” in its entirety.

More and more the fate or governments sand large organizations will depend on their ability to expand their innovation capabilities beyond the part, to address the whole. While design has a long and deep tradition in shaping parts, it now has a critical responsibility in helping shape large systems & wholes. The notion of Strategic Design and the Finnish Innovation Fund’s Helsinki Design Lab initiative will be discussed.