Sensorica at Open Design Conference in Hong Kong

 

Maria Frangos M.S. Design and Sensorica affiliate, presented at Open Design of E-very-thing, part of the Cumulus series of design conferences, which was held at the Hong Kong Institute of Design in late November 2016. Our short paper was submitted to the track Open Design for Engagement:

"The novelty, diversity and complexity of current social challenges and the contexts in which they are situated demands similar diversity of interventions to address them. Multiple and diverse proposals are most readily generated via the involvement of many different people, with many different perspectives and resources, contributing to the process of innovation. These are the tenets of “open innovation” – that by “opening up” the innovation process – the process of coming up with, implementing and exploiting new ideas – we can increase the diversity of, and capacity for, innovation within a (eco)system. To “open up” the innovation process to a diversity of actors – to democratise design innovation – a diversity of people must encounter the design process such that they can engage with and contribute to it. This track aims to explore these early stages within the collaborative innovation journey. Enquiring into the strategies that are applied to support the assembly and formation of publics, from which design coalitions may precipitate. We ask “What are the methods, tools and approaches that favour encounter and foster engagement – and ultimately participation - in ‘open’ processes of collaborative enquiry, visioning and production?” From living labs to design performances - we are interested in the platforms and practices that “stage” these encounters and engagements. We also welcome the sharing of examples, as well as reflections and theories as to what works in what contexts - how, why and for whom."

Short report

Paul Bardini, PhD student from Brisbane, Australia also presented work on open source hardware, along with Maria. Aside from them, most attendees were not versed with open source methodologies. The term open or openness was interpreted more as a general approach to inclusion, rather than a methodological approach. The other presenters showed work spanning from fashion design and making to urban typography and heritage, with a unifying focus on engagement.

Our paper will be published this spring, see below. 

Larger context

Sensorica has been prototyping relations with academic labs for the past 6 years. The body of these relations form an interface between the crowd and academia. In our opinion, Open Science is a set of practices that reach beyond institutional borders, hence the need of these interfaces.

The PV characterization project presented at this conference is the most recent iteration of this sort of interface. Past iterations have been built around ENGAGE grants with McGill, Ecole Polytechnique, Montreal Heart Institute.

Sensorica is the only open (innovation) network we know that has gone so far into prototyping interfaces with traditional institutions, academic, private and governmental - see this document for more. This is still a work in progress. At every iteration we have learned something new and adjusted our OVN model. This 6 years long process has provided Sensorica with a valuable insight into the meshing between what we call the new economy and the traditional economy, in a period of transition.

Traditional institutions that are embarking on a path of institutional change need, in our opinion, to start by building bridges with the new type of organizations (connect to the crowd through interfaces like Sensorica), and through these bridges get infused of new structural elements, methodologies, tools, etc. in order to inform and fuel their own transformation. 

 

Published paper