Context

The global economy continues to sputter; unemployment and under-employment continue to increase; the gap between the rich and poor continues to widen. Climate change continues unabated despite politicians denial and the march of environmental and natural disasters has reached a new high. The rise of massive new energy consumers like China and India, along with the unmet basic human needs of over a billion people, means that developing new designs that meet the word's basic human needs while not destroying the environment is of critical importance to the survival and well being of Spaceship Earth and everyone on board.

The 2012 Design Science Lab will develop designs and strategies that addresses these real and present problems, envisions a global society where basic human needs are met, and develops a blueprint of what such a world would look like— and how we can get there.

The 2012 Design Science Lab will focus on:

1. Meeting Needs With Mobile Phone Tech: The possibilities of using mobile phones (and the 500,000+ apps developed for them so far) to meet education, health care, security, financial services and other basic human needs in developing regions of the world offers great promise. Already, mobile phone technology is being used to help with HIV prevention, basic sanitation, workforce development (e.g., how to run a business), general education, literacy and numeracy skills, civic engagement, financial management, leadership, negotiation and conflict resolution.

More people have Internet access thorough their cell phone than through computers. What are the apps that would be ideal for meeting needs in the developing world? Which ones need to be designed, from the point of view of making the world work for everyone?

2. Regenerating Cities: More than half the world lives in cities, and the percentage is growing rapidly. 100 cities account for 30 percent of the world's economy, and almost all its innovation. New York City's economy alone is larger than 46 of sub-Saharan Africa's economies combined. Hong Kong receives more tourists annually than all of India. Cities are the engines of globalization but they harbor unprecedented human misery and the unmet human needs of close to a billion people. How can cities be regenerated so they are sources of energy, food and water— instead of sinks? And how can all the people living within the world's cities have a high standard of living?

The Lab is not an academic exercise. Real world solutions will be developed. Every effort will be made to get the most viable solutions implemented.

Read more about what Design Science is here.

WHAT/WHERE

The 2012 Lab will take place for seven intensive days from June 17 to June 25, 2012 at beautiful Chestnut Hill College in suburban Philadelphia and the United Nations in New York City, NY.

Medard Gabel, who worked with Buckminster Fuller for over twelve years, directs both programs.

LAB FORMAT AND SCHEDULE

Day 1: Registration; orientation; state of the world; introduction to design science, the UN's Millennium Development Goals, in-depth briefings by UN staff from UNDP, UNEP, UNICEF, and other UN agencies.
Day 2: Briefings on global and local economic issues, strategic design, design science methodology and its practical applications, contests, grants and sources of funding that can take your work to the implementation stage.
Day 3–6: Design and development of strategies for transforming global and local economies.
Day 7: Presentations of work at the United Nations; wrap up and closing event.

“The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution.”

—Albert Einstein