Today I went to the Dreampitches of the Harvard course “How to create things and have them matter” (ES20). This course is facilitated by David Edwards, the founder of the ArtScience Labs (see previous blog). Harvard undergraduate and graduate students have worked in mixed teams to imagine ways of skiing in balls, talking in halls (in post-Google ways) – and making art through physical rehabilitation. I saw some ‘naive prototypes’, which underlined their ambition to dream.
I found it interesting that most of the prototypes had a focus on connecting people facilitated by a new kind of social media. Fun and gaming were aspects that were mentioned often, with the intention to make it more attractive for people to act. None of the groups had invented something useful but boring (for instance a new machine to clean your toilet, a new fence for my garden, or a new kind of bond). Apparently Fun and Socialization are important when you give young people the space to dream.
I think that it would be interesting to create such an environment / space for professionals in the Netherlands, with the objective to become creative and dream again about the future. What would for instance a mixed team from different industries come up with? A new kind of bank that connects people and with the focus on making the lives of their participants better? Or a training institute were the participants train each other?
Afterwards I spoke shortly with David Ma, a student in this course, about his lessons learned. Thanks David for your flexibility to act in an instant! And thanks to your team mates who said that you were their spokesperson;) They were right!
Let's play Innovation! 