On Thursday 7 March Design Director of IDEO, Tom Hulme, returned to London College of Communication to talk to students about the global design firm’s open innovation platform, OpenIDEO, and invite students to take part in their latest design challenge.
Tom introduced OpenIDEO and explained the principles of the platform; how it relies on publicly shared ideas and information, uses technology to connect people all over the world, and is being used to solve big problems for the collective good.
OpenIDEO’s latest World Challenge addresses the issue of women’s safety in low-income urban areas.
He reminded the audience of three central ideas on which OpenIDEO is founded:
1. We’re all designers
2. We achieve more through collaboration
3. Technology is just a design tool
Tom was also joined by the event’s organiser, BA (Hons) Design for Graphic Communication student Karoline Kirchhubel Andersen, who is currently on an internship with IDEO. Karoline spoke about the invaluable experience she has gained by submitting ideas within the OpenIDEO framework and receiving feedback on her work from others.
Tom then invited LCC and UAL students to join the global OpenIDEO community and help solve the latest World Challenge, which addresses the issue of women’s safety in low-income urban areas. This Challenge is currently in the Research phase, and students are encouraged to speak to anyone they can with experience around women’s safety concerns and submit their findings online.
Tom and Karoline also announced that they will be starting a series of OpenIDEO MeetUps during the next few months, with real-life networking events to hopefully be held on UAL sites. They then answered questions from staff and students on OpenIDEO and design education, and revealed that future World Challenges will focus on the issues of recycling and the elderly.
Last year Tom was invited to LCC as part of the UAL Meets series where he talked to LCC Head of College Natalie Brett about his career as a designer. You can watch that film on LCC’s YouTube channel.