Building Bridges

Osaka: Design Forum 1

Posted on January 30, 2015

The first of a series of Design Forum addressing a question: “how might we use our networks to improve the delivery of child survival?” will be convened in Osaka on 9-10 February.

You are invited to participate, no matter how far away from Osaka you might live.

It is free to attend. You can register here.

On 9 February, join us in person or online at one of a number of scheduled video conferences where we will frame the Osaka event as “Designing the Design Forum”.

The Osaka forum will examine what is best practice in design and in convening a gathering. How might we best build bridges that matter, how can we involve others, how can we increase collaboration?

Some key initiatives that point the way to what works can be recently observed:

• Davos, The World Economic Forum
• Bill and Melinda Gates Annual Letter
• The recent ‘Your Turn Challenge’ from Seth Godin and his capable coworker Winnie
• and there are many other examples, and we want you to help explore this list and determine what we can learn, what we can replicate, and what we can take away.

It will be a humble beginning, wedded to a Acumen Fund/IDEO free, online, seven-week course to introduce the process of Design Thinking. Get involved with the course here.

10 February will be experiential by participating in HackOsaka to examine first-hand a hackathon in a different culture and language from that which most of us speak and know. Many people have been part of a hackathon at some point, but the big question will be how do we extend this to a context which out of necessity builds bridges with the other?

Child survival is the core issue, but this first Design Forum in Osaka will be about process. I hope you can be involved too!