UnBox: Future of Human Ecologies

Future of Human Ecologies 18 November 2017 | Bangalore

The Open IoT Studio

The world of the future seems to be a smart, fast, connected digital world and it is easy to get seduced by the potential it promises. There is a lot of hype around data-driven futures that will make everything, including our relationships with each other and the places that we live in, smarter and more efficient. However it is also important to focus on our shared humanity and the diversity of our complex lived experiences in our conversations about the future.

How can we find expression and meaning in a world shaped by technology, data and algorithms? How can we think of technology that can manifest our shared culture and values that are also unique to place and context? How can we be educated participants in our own future?

This edition of UnBox seeks to start conversations about the role of technology in our society, and about how we want to navigate being human in a digital world.

There are five varied workshops for participants to choose from:

Body as Sensor - attendees will address questions around our senses and the design of emergent technologies as we work towards our own designs that will reflect ethical, contextuallysituated designs that use our bodies as sensors.

Facilitators: Shannon Dosemagen & Jon Rogers Designing for Consequences - explore how design researchers can be of help in dealing with complex, multistakeholder innovations.

Facilitator: Danielle Arets & Archana Prasad Provocative Prototyping - in this practical workshop hosted

by Mozilla’s Open IoT Studio, people will discuss, sketch and prototype alternative possibilities for the future of voice and the Internet.

Facilitator: Martin Skelly & Pete Thomas

Visual Design Research - this workshop will show how film can become a language for collaboration with participants in multidisciplinary teams that aim to strengthen their design and innovation efforts through design research.

Facilitators: Isabelle Makay & Dr. Bas Raijmakers

Design for Social Impact - examples from Quicksand’s decade-long practice in this domain will be used to understand the nuances of design for social impact and how the latest in technology, UX, and design can be used for the betterment of society.

Facilitators: Ayush Chauhan & Kevin Shane

Two panel discussions will seek to build provocations around a more imaginative future for technology in our lives. How can newer technologies learn from traditional communities and indigenous practices to offer a more authentic experience? Will it lead to alienation or can it be a way to understand each other and build empathy?

Citizen Engagement with the City and Its Spaces - a group of experts lead a conversation around experiments that demonstrate different models across geographies for participatory city-building.

Panelists: Danielle Arets, Archana Prasad, S Vishwanath,

Dr. Bas Raijmakers Community-led Technology Models - experts present provocations and ideas around how decentralised models of technology development can become more robust and relevant to communities.

Panelists: Shannon Dosemagen, Mike Thompson, Jon

Rogers, Romit Raj

The day concludes with time dedicated to networking and socialising, allowing participants time to interact with the panelists, workshop facilitators, visiting students, and each other!

SPEAKERS AND PARTNERS Shannon Dosemagen is co-founder of Public Lab, a community where people learn to investigate environmental concerns using inexpensive DIY techniques. Shannon is based in New Orleans where she manages the work of the Public Lab nonprofit.

Jon Rogers holds a personal chair in creative technology at the University of Dundee and has a PhD in neural networks from Imperial College London and built up his knowledge of research at the interface between design and digital technology while being a tutor and researcher at the Royal College of Art.

Danielle Arets is a design researcher with a background in cultural and media studies from University of Maastricht (the Netherlands) and Aarhus University (Denmark). She researches the political and narrative dimensions of design.

Martin Skelly is a designer from Scotland, UK. He uses design and emerging technologies to create new products, interactions and experiences. His work explores themes of privacy, user agency and happiness. Martin is a researcher in Mozilla’s Open IoT Studio and lectures in Product Design at the University of Dundee.

Ayush Chauhan heads up Quicksand, a design strategy and innovation consultancy working in emerging markets at the intersection of business, international development, arts, and culture. Ayush is also the co-founder of UnBox, the first interdisciplinary festival in India bringing together leading voices from across the world for inspiration, debate and reflection.

SPEAKERS AND PARTNERS Kevin Shane has the dual role of Principal and Communications Lead at Quicksand. Keenly interested in the role human-centered design can play in addressing the world’s most pressing challenges, Kevin leads many of the studio’s efforts in the design for social impact space.

Dr. Bas Raijmakers is a Reader in Strategic Creativity at Design Academy Eindhoven. Bas has a background in cultural studies, the Internet industry, and interaction design. His main passion is to bring people we design for into design and innovation processes, using visual storytelling. He holds a PhD in Interaction Design from the Royal College of Art in London.

Isabelle Makay is a visual anthropologist, documentary maker and educator at the Design Academy in Eindhoven.

She graduated with a Master of Science in the field of cultural anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and specialized in visual anthropology at Leiden University.

S Vishwanath is a civil engineer and Urban and Regional Planner by qualification. By occupation, he is a writer on and practitioner of sustainable water management systems. He runs a blog/website dedicated to rainwater harvesting practices and is affectionately referred to as Zen Rainman.

Archana Prasad spent a decade studying in the arts and design area, and then worked as a Design Researcher at Microsoft Research India. She is a Fellow of the prestigious Clore Leadership Progam, UK as well as an Art Think South Asia Fellow.

The Times of India selected her as a future cultural leader of Bangalore.

SPEAKERS AND PARTNERS Peter Thomas is a multi-disciplinary designer, currently teaching and researching at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee. He is also a director of Tom Pigeon, a creative studio he founded in 2014, which sells its work globally.

In 1998 he co-founded the creative consultancy Uniform, one of the UK’s leading design consultancies. He has exhibited work at SXSW in Austin, Texas, London Design Festival, Il Compasso di Latta, La Triennale di Milano, The V&A and The Design Musuem, London.

Mike Thompson of Thought Collider & DAE experiments with the meanings and values that can be derived from alternative ways of experiencing built and mediated environments, motivated by emergent nature cultures. To this end, their work involves conducting experiments and processual artworks spanning various media, generating experiential insights from the anecdotal or absurd: lived experiences that confront the norm by encountering the thing-like nature of organisms, objects and places.

Who It’s For UnBox was designed to appeal to a widearray of engaged and engaging people, irrespective of professional or personal backgrounds; it is a platform for exploring the serendipities that arise from bringing together different opinions informed by different disciplines. This event is no different! All that is required is an active imagination and unsatiated curiosity for the world around you.

Anchored by UnBox is a multi-disciplinary, collaborative platform for experiential learning that explores new and emerging cultural contexts, while being rooted in peoplecentric approaches. Founded as a festival in India in 2011, Unbox has prompted new thought, work and partnerships at the intersection of design, art, culture, social change and enterprise. Over the past seven years, the festival has grown into a widely recognized platform for inspiration, dialogue and hands-on action.

Partnered with Mozilla’s Open IoT Studio is a global network of professionals committed to open Internet of Things, working alongside Mozilla to make IoT more open, accessible, and empowering.

Design Academy Eindhoven (The Netherlands) is known for its conceptual, authentic, creative, passionate and curious approach to design, moving beyond design disciplines and pushing the boundaries in research and education.

Lowe’s Innovation Labs is the disruptive technology hub for Lowe's Companies, Inc., the U.S.-based FORTUNE 50 home improvement company. It seeks to connect with India’s tech leaders and innovators to collaborate and develop new capabilities and proofs of concept. The vision is to discover new frontiers and seed new platforms, while fostering an environment of innovation to help people love where they live.

Tentative Schedule Registration

Welcome & Intro Panel Discussion Workshops Panel Discussion DAE Student Presentations Networking & Drinks

1400 - 1430 hrs 1430 - 1445 hrs 1445 - 1530 hrs 1545 - 1745 hrs 1800 - 1845 hrs 1845 - 1915 hrs 1915 - 2000 hrs

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