Interdependence: A Design Exploration
A Four-Week Partnered Project +
+
Summer 2018
About Omidyar Network
About SVA
Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm that creates opportunity for people to improve their lives by investing in market-based efforts that catalyze economic and social change. Understanding the scale and importance of this work, Omidyar does not undertake the challenge alone. The most powerful force for change lies in connection with others: business, government, nonprofits, and individual partners. Together, the firm leverages those collective resources to transform scarcity into abundance and put enduring opportunity within reach of more people worldwide.
School of Visual Arts has been a leader in the education of artists, designers and creative professionals for nearly seven decades. With a faculty of distinguished working professionals, dynamic curriculum and an emphasis on critical thinking, SVA is a catalyst for innovation and social responsibility. Comprised of more than 6,000 students at its Manhattan campus and nearly 37,000 alumni in 75 countries, SVA also represents one of the most influential artistic communities in the world.
About MFA Products of Design The MFA in Products of Design is an immersive, two-year graduate program that creates exceptional practitioners for leadership in the shifting terrain of design. We educate heads, hearts and hands to reinvent systems and catalyze positive change. Graduates emerge with confidence, methods, experience and strong professional networks. They gain the skills necessary to excel in senior positions at top design firms and progressive organizations, create ingenious enterprises of their own, and become lifelong advocates for the power of design.
We would like to extend our gratitude to Roy Steiner for making this project possible.
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Contents
The Design Team
17
Subject Matter Experts
21
Our Target Opportunity
35
Design Interventions 1/ Mapping Toolkit 2/ Netflix Reveal 3/ Ask Me About... 4/ plus plus minus 5/ Dish 6/ Access to Internships Program 7/ Nanny+ 8/ CareShare 9/ Consort 10/ Green Garden Rewards 11/ Elevator 12/ Gift Trip 13/ Props! 14/ Interdependence Design Institute
37 43 71 79 87 95 105 117 125 131 139 149 153 157 159
Design Team Interviews
167
Looking Forward
181
Acknowledgements 183
Contents
Preface 07 Why Design? 07 Foreword 11 Brief 15
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Why Design? Allan Chochinov Chair of MFA Products Of Design, Partner at Core77 Design is an incomparable force for innovation, and an unparalleled force for transformation. Where design was once seen as an aesthetic or commercial pursuit—“how can design make something look better, or sell better?”—we now understand that design achieves its true potential as a strategic pursuit—“how can design make something work more effectively, or contribute to a more equitable and just society?”
might be different than what they are used to, design’s ability to carve out pockets of permission is what allows its contributions to thrive.
Design creates permission. Design’s original mandate is to question the status quo, so “How might we…” is a fundamental starting point in design, baked right into the practice. Imagining things differently requires bravery, of course, but it also requires permission. And since change is only possible when people are willing to entertain the notion that things
And so, Design creates capacity. Design teams and design methods provide capacities that are unique: Capacity to reframe problems into opportunities, capacity to give structure to new systems and interactions, and capacity to create artifacts that are visual, powerful, and persuasive.
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Preface
Design creates tangible artifacts. There is nothing so convincing as placing something in someone’s hands, putting something in front of someone’s eyes, or immersing their mind and body in a new experience. Design does all three—manifesting prototypes and speculative options that allow for a But to understand why design is such a powerful force, shared point of reference. When multiple people in a let’s break down its defining superpowers: room can “point to something” and discuss it, they’re relieved of the pressure to defend their individual Design creates consequence. Design creates ideas to the group. This is one of design’s magic tricks. “things,” certainly—products, apps, services, And it works every time. experiences, logos, brands. But the real power of design is its ability to create consequence, to Design welcomes exception. Design values the create impact. unique individual. It values marginalized ideas that may take purchase in more tolerant and accepting Design creates structure. Design’s ability to craft conditions. And it values under-leveraged potential, containers—or vessels—for ideas and experiences to seeing as much possibility in small saplings as in take shape inside is its secret sauce. For example, if we towering Sequoias. want behavior change in the world, we need to provide incentives and protocols. But we also need to provide Design likes speed, and not a lot of meetings. It is structure to the interactions between people, place, one thing to talk about a problem or a challenge or politics, and policy. Design rethinks and reconfigures an obstacle, and it is another to do something about those structures. it. Design and designers are intrepid, and they like to move quickly. Design would rather iterate than Designing is reframing. Designers use systems debate—moving a potential solution further along by thinking to construct an overview of any question or doing something, and then doing it again, better. challenge they take on, but it is common that once a system and its stakeholders are truly understood, the Design creates delight. Design understands both the underlining questions and assumptions may need to power of reason and the power of joy, and it uses both change. It is the capacity to “reframe” problems that to create solutions and offerings that speak as much to gives design its unique vantage point. the human heart as to the human intellect.
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“ I believe that people are interdependent, fundamentally good, and capable.�
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Preface
Pierre Omidyar
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Foreword Jennifer Rittner Faculty Advisor SVA Products of Design and the Omidyar Network collaborated for four weeks during the summer of 2018. The initiative, colloquially referred to as the Interdependence Project, harnessed the capacities of design to address one of society’s most pressing challenges of the moment: our increasingly polarized personal and political landscape. Our small but agile team consisted of six emerging designers: Smruti Adya (PoD ’18), Alexia Cohen (PoD ’18), Will Crum (PoD ’18), Andrew Schlesinger (PoD’18), Mahya Soltani (Design ’18), and Qixuan Wang (PoD ’19). Together we explored the means to build a stronger, more resilient society that capacitates our already deeply interconnected lives. We sought to reveal the invisible yet vast network of global connections to energize our capacity for empathy, curiosity and joy. We imagined ways to lubricate social interactions between variously segregated groups of people, bringing them into more nuanced relationships with one another with intention and care. We harnessed the capacities of design to instantiate our collective values, beliefs and desires. And we held fast to the belief that healing cultural anxiety and polarization benefits us all.
Throughout this book you will see us grappling with big questions, which we attempt to answer through human-centered design process: research, ideation, prototyping and design criticism. The team also took the opportunity of these four weeks to draw inspiration from philosophers and cultural critics like Kwame Anthony Appiah, Arjun Appadurai, Zygmunt Bauman, Arturo Escobar and Sylvia Wynter, whose writings inspired new avenues of thought. What emerged were fourteen design concepts, in varying stages of development, that we hope you find thought-provoking and actionable. We welcome continued feedback and further development of this work. Exploring the theme of interdependence is a means toward a still undefined end. We hope that this work charts new paths toward social cohesion that disrupts the current state of political polarization, social isolation and cultural anxiety. Perhaps engaging with our ideas serves to bring more people into the conversation about how we are connected and why we should continue to strive for the messy possibilities that interdependence enables.
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Preface
We feel that we have already dropped a pebble in this pond and we look forward to further partnerships As was so clearly articulated by the Omidyar Network’s with the Omidyar Network, continuing to contribute Roy Steiner, “We simply are interdependent.” our insights, vision and voices to the collective good.
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Brief
In a world that is increasingly interconnected and interdependent, we are also experiencing growing polarization, racism, tribalism and fragmentation. These are worrying because recent history has taught us that the eventual fruits of these trends invariably lead to an increase in violence, oppression and the weakening of the fabric of civilization.
b) C itizens develop the capacities needed to manage and flourish in diverse and complex communities (capabilities) c) T he ethics of interdependence cultivates compassion, solidarity and trustworthiness and encourages all citizens to act in the long-term interests of society. (norms)
Similarly, if we understand interdependence we can more readily build a society that enables individual empowerment and social wellbeing. If we fail to recognize and leverage interdependence we build a society that results in oppression and needless suffering and fails to achieve its potential. The challenge of exploring interdependence is that it is a subject that is both vast and complex. It applies across scales (family, community, nation, globe), sectors (education, business, politics, religion, community development, etc.), and timeframes. Success will be finding scalable activities or investments that effectively change mindsets, capacities or norms. Necessarily this will require an impact and learning framework to guide our work.
Preface
a) A ll citizens recognize and value our interdependence (mindsets)
Interdependence is not a goal. The ultimate goal is individual empowerment and societal well-being and interdependence is simply a feature of reality like gravity or evolution. When we understand gravity, we can build a plane that flies. When we don’t understand gravity, we build a plane that crashes.
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The Omidyar Network is embarking on an exploration of interdependence by asking the following framing question. How might we create a society where:
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The Design Team
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Faculty Allan Chochinov, Department Chair Jennifer Rittner, Faculty
The Design Team
Team Smruti Adya Alexia Cohen Will Crum Andrew Schlesinger Mahya Soltani Qixuan Wang
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Subject Matter Experts
Roy Steiner Omidyar Network Alexa Courtney Frontier Design Group
Douglas Rushkoff Culture critic + author Richard Tyson Gensler
We had the privilege of speaking with colleagues and thought leaders like Roy Steiner, Alexa Courtney, Marc Dones, Travis Granfar, Douglas Rushkoff and Richard Tyson who shared their own observations and hopes for interdependence as they encounter these questions in their work. We are grateful for the foundational conversations we had around the brief and our broader mission, including parsing definitions of interdependence and how it is manifested in healthy and unhealthy ways. Below are highlighted synopses of these conversations.
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Travis Granfar Bestir Group
Subject Matter Experts
Marc Dones FutureLab
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Roy Steiner
“ Everyone feels fear. But how can we harness it for good?”
Subject Matter Experts
Steiner expresses alarm at the ‘forces of disintegration’ that are building walls of tribalism and ignorance between us. As he reminds us, we all share a common heritage. By laying bare the connections that unite us, we can counter the unhealthy interdependence that such xenophobic tribalism breeds.
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Roy Steiner is the senior director of intellectual capital and served as our fellowship’s client and benefactor. He has extensive experience in global development, has helmed numerous infrastructure and agriculture projects in Africa, Asia and Europe, and spent nine years as a senior director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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Alexa Courtney
Courtney introduced us to the concept of “absorbative capacity,” a term used to describe whether a region can safely accept financial or material aid. In conflict zones, absorbative capacity is low, because the lack of stability can breed violent competition for the new resources. For that reason, lean grassroots interventions can often be more successful than better-funded external initiatives. She cited the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), a Nigerian non-profit dedicated to combating the radicalization of young men by terrorist groups like Boko Haram and ISIS, by attempting to connect vulnerable youth to mentorship and employment opportunities that make them feel connected and valued.
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Alexa Courtney is the founder and CEO of Frontier Design Group, a design consultancy specialized in helping governments, communities and large organizations manage complexity and adapt to change. She has over 15 years of experience applying design thinking, innovation, and systems complexity studies to human security issues in the US, Europe, Asia and Africa.
Subject Matter Experts
“ Empathy is probably the most important element in solving the biggest problems of our time.”
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Marc Dones
Dones articulated the need to approach a problem from an entirely new lens and ask stakeholder to completely re-imagine their role is both exacerbating and solving problems. Often entrenched organizations — police, social workers, educators — see the “other” as preventing real change from happening, rather than realizing that shifting the dynamics of how they all work together can lead to more meaningful progress.
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Marc Dones is an anthropologist and Senior Lead of Equitable Systems at Future Laboratories, a design research and futuring Think Tank. As a project lead for the Center for Social Innovation in Boston, Marc worked to refocus the homelessness debate around racial equity.
Subject Matter Experts
“ You cannot engineer new people, but you can engineer the way in which people interact.”
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Travis Granfar
Granfar presented two contrasting ways of pitching “interdependence” as a benefit to a wary audience: either by focusing on interconnectedness or by addressing reciprocity (you give in order to receive). He also shared a diagram that articulated by staging interventions for children and teens is more effective than for adults. “Imagine a straight line moving outward from a starting point,” he said. “That line will only travel as far as the edge of your paper, and you have the ability to deflect its angle by one degree. The earlier you deflect the line, the greater positional change you’ll effect on where the line ends up.”
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Travis Granfar is the founder of Licious Media, a production agency, Bitesize Ventures, a startup accelerator, and Bestir Group, a design consultancy focused on social impact. A An attorney by training, Travis also teaches ethics, design and innovation at the Parsons School of Design Strategies in New York and Paris.
Subject Matter Experts
“ Consider reciprocity, if you ignore one person within a system, the whole system is bound to fail.”
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Douglas Rushkoff
Rushkoff noted that capitalism, which he defined as being “about externalizing the value of what you do,” is currently ordered in a way that rewards and incentivizes constant growth. But this fosters behemoths that make the many radically dependent on a centralized few — a brittle and potentially disastrous imbalance of power. One way to address this imbalance is to turn toward new models of healthy interdependence. It can be difficult to feel excited about a future where those in the driving seat are preparing for the day they might dramatically isolate themselves from the masses.
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Douglas Rushkoff is a writer, documentarian, and lecturer whose work focuses on human autonomy in a digital age. He is the author of fifteen bestselling books on media, technology, and society, including Program or Be Programmed, Present Shock, and Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus.
Subject Matter Experts
“ How do you create a system that doesn’t need 100X scale to survive?”
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Richard Tyson
Tyson presented interdependence as a two-layered engagement. The first layer is that of identity or perception: the system as we see, experience, and self-identify within it. The second layer is reality: all the connections and power dynamics that weave us together, whether we see or believe in them. “Is our real goal to better align these two layers?” he wondered.
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Richard Tyson is the director of connected places strategy at Gensler Research Institute.
Subject Matter Experts
“ How do we diagnose exclusionary dynamics for action?”
Picture: GOSO (Getting Out and Staying Out) Interviewees
Since the context for our design initiatives was so broad, we were relieved to have a clearly defined target audience to help constrain and frame our interventions. This target opportunity, defined as emerging adults, 15-25 years old, who are not college‑bound, made available to us a community in which to conduct our initial research.
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Our Target Opportunity
Individuals who agreed to participate were asked to engage with the team around the Mapping Toolkit, facilitated by the design team. Among those who participated were:
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HIM, an LGBTQ youth center in New York. This engagement was facilitated by Bryson Rose, Assistant Director for Training.
Our Target Opportunity
Brandon Defreitas Ricardo Agaurd Julius Manigault The team identified some organizations they had Brandon Jones worked with on previous projects as well as a few they Jon Lindsey discovered through their investigations: Joshua Lindsey Ian Waring Getting Out and Staying Out (GOSO), John Holm an organization that empowers young men to Justin Pope avoid involvement in the criminal justice system Yanhong Zhao by reshaping their futures through educational Zhentao Yan achievement, meaningful employment, and financial Trevon Massiah independence. This engagement was facilitated by Alondra C Julia Friedman, GOSO’s Senior Career Manager and Director of Corporate Affairs In addition, the design team interviewed car-share drivers and individuals who agreed to speak with BK Rot, a Bushwick, Brooklyn community garden. them in Union Square. All of the research with these This engagement was facilitated by Dan Gross, a generous participants yielded useful insights. member of the Advisory Board.
Picture: Analyzing results of GOSO interview workshop for trends
Interventions
Mapping Toolkit Netflix Reveal Ask Me About... plus plus minus Dish Access to Internships Program Nanny+ CareShare Consort Green Garden Rewards Elevator Gift Trip Props! Interdependence Design Institute
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1/ 2/ 3/ 4/ 5/ 6/ 7/ 8/ 9/ 10/ 11/ 12/ 13/ 14/
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Design Interventions
Picture: Design team conducting interviews
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Five Goals for Achieving Meaningful Change 1. R eveal Interdependence Remove dependency to highlight connection Create microcosms to reflect broader systems
2. Promote Pluralism Stories are more convincing than facts Develop mental flexibility to embrace complexity and eschew blind allegiance Create modular systems for co-authorship within communities Increase diversity, representation and inclusion
3. Bridge Physical and Psychological Distances Unify groups around a common purpose to encourage collaboration Recalibrate power imbalances Integrate divided systems
4. Facilitate Exchange
5. Empower Personal Agency
Interventions
Foster long-term intergroup relationships Promote dialogue over debate Initiate new rituals or hijack old ones Unify groups around a common purpose
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Transform limitations into opportunities Connect the disenfranchised Illustrate positive visions of the future Develop tools for critical thinking and reflection
Workshop Process Introduce Theme. Provide team with initial project brief and prompts to ignite their thinking and creativity around the core idea. Brainstorm & Share Insights. Initial discussion of the scope, parameters, assumptions and frameworks that sets expectations and aligns the team in common purpose. Independent Research and Analysis. Readings, observations, user studies and discussion of findings. Concept & Prototype Development. Preparing design concepts and transforming them into visual and tactile models for feedback. Review & Critique. Sharing concepts and prototypes with the team to access their insights and plot out new iterations. Presentation & Feedback. Prepare final presentation of work in a narrative structure that articulates the core ideas and invites critical feedback.
• • • • • • • • • •
Shared sense of purpose Intentionality Conscience Adaptability Shared material resources Ritual A contract or covenant Acknowledgement of individual and collective vulnerability Information-sharing, including knowledge passed down through generations Built-in system for meaningful disagreement
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Conditions for Functional Interdependence
What Healthy Interdependence Means To Us
•
Interventions
•
Awareness of the invisible threads that binds us together A balance of power dynamics in which we recognize that we are co-equals in a collective endeavor Embracing pluralism
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Project Goals
Reveal Interdependence Promote Pluralism Bridge Distances Facilitate Exchange Empower Personal Agency
Mapping Toolkit
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Design lead: Alexia Cohen
Mapping Toolkit is a social credit system that captures the value of community gardens — and puts it to work.
Key Value A tool for research, to incite conversations and enable interactions around interdependence.
A facilitator would work with young people to reveal their social and emotional connections and/ or diagnose pain points in their lives. The toolkit serves as an external agent for what can be sensitive discussion that would otherwise leave young people feeling vulnerable or exposed. Through the physical act of mapping their world, they are controlling their own narratives and providing cues for adult supervisors to respond to appropriately. Interventions
Proposal A set of mapping exercises to help us understand how people see themselves in the world they inhabit.
The Mapping Toolkit is a means for users to reflect on and visualize their independencies. This methodology may be particularly useful in SocialEmotional Learning programs. A pilot program at a High School where SEL pedagogy is currently underway would allow school psychologists and guidance counselors to incorporate this visualization methodology safely, providing feedback to the design team as needed through an open, iterative process.
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Challenge How might we get people understand the interdependent systems they are a part of?
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Mapping Toolkit
Revealing Interdependence Our connections to one another are reinforced through awareness and acknowledgment. If we know that we need each other, we are inclined to treat each other with respect, dignity and care. Design can build small moments of awareness into our individual consciousness through visual tools that visibly demonstrate our interconnected lives. How might we reveal to individuals the interdependent systems in their close, personal lives?
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Mapping Toolkit
“ People don’t seem to disagree about interdependence. It’s a matter of getting people to think about it.”
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Interventions
Travis Granfar, Bestir Group
Mapping Toolkit
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Mapping Toolkit
How it works
The Mapping Toolkit is implemented as part of a facilitated creation process. Participants discuss the many invisible threads in their lives that connect them with others physically, virtually and emotionally. With awareness and curiosity as their drivers, participants are inspired to learn more, creating new ripples in ponds that echo further. The Mapping Toolkit currently consists of four maps that reveal different aspects of an individual’s relationships: • Connections • Circles of Belonging • Comfort Zones Map • Forces of Influence
Connections Map
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Interventions
The connections map reveals the participant’s closest allies in life: the people they rely on and who rely on them. They may be prompted to identify those connections as either loosely or firmly held, those that may be mutually reliant, and the connections that their connections have. They may also determine if, by mapping these connections, they reveal groups or circles they might label.
Mapping Toolkit
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Mapping Toolkit
Circles of Belonging Map
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Interventions
Circles of belonging express the ways in which individuals recognize their community connections, including the ways in which those communities interact through them and perhaps communities they may not feel a part of but are connections to communities with which they feel some affinity.
Mapping Toolkit
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Mapping Toolkit
Forces of Influence Map
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Interventions
Mapping influences makes more transparent the ways in which people they know personally or in broader cultural spaces influence their perspectives, identity, decisions and goals. These influencers may not always be chosen, may embody negative forces or may be leveraged as mentors and role models. This charting may also change over time and become a blueprint for change.
Mapping Toolkit
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Mapping Toolkit
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By identifying the spaces where an individual feels included or excluded — by choice or by demand — they are given an opportunity to see more broadly how communities or environments facilitate forms of belonging. They may also start the recognize the nuances of spaces where they may not go with intention — like school — but where they have a community of possible allies and connections in cultural understanding. They may also see where their sense of belonging may change over time — “I didn’t use to feel include there but then things changed and I did” — which builds greater flexibility and resilience — “I don’t feel like I belong in this new place but maybe that will change over time.”
Interventions
Comfort Zones Map
Picture: BK Rot Interviewee using the maps
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Mapping Toolkit
“ A significant portion of the population does not recognize how interdependent we are. From an early age we learn that we are separate. How can we celebrate diversity but also celebrate our interconnectedness?�
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Interventions
Roy Steiner, Omidyar Network
Picture: GOSO (Getting Out and Staying Out) Interviewees using the maps
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Mapping Toolkit
“ Interdependence is a description of reality, just like gravity. How do we elevate consciousness around it?�
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Interventions
Roy Steiner, Omidyar Network
Picture: Interviews by using the maps in Union Square, NYC
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Interventions
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Mapping Toolkit
Picture: Interviewee after using the maps in Union Square, NYC
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Interventions
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Mapping Toolkit
Picture: Interviews by using the maps in Union Square, NYC
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Interventions
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Mapping Toolkit
Picture: Team analyzing the data collected from interviews and interventions using the maps
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Interventions
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Picture: BK Rot Interviewee using the maps
Next Steps Once implemented, the design team and facilitators are invited to share their experiences. All participants are invited to co-create and re-invent the Toolkit so that it is optimally meaningful for their needs and user environment.
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Mapping Toolkit
As a shareable resource, the toolkit can be downloaded from a centralized platform. We would also encourage users to share their completed maps via social media in order to encourage further engagement and discover new connections with their friends and family. Continued use of the maps could reveal not only each individual’s “six degrees” of connection, but perhaps even their tenth, fiftieth, one hundredth and beyond.
Long Term
“Aha” moment during the facilitated co‑creation process
Initiative partners implement and integrate the toolkit in their own processes
Users post their maps on the IDI platform and/or social media, inviting others to participate
Corporate HR departments implement the toolkit as an on boarding activity for new hires
Viral hashtags #AllConnected #CirclesofBelonging #MapYourCircles #MapConnect #MapMe
Co-creation toolkits become the norm in conflict mediation, civic engagement initiatives and corporate culture activities
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Near Term
Interventions
Measures of Success
Project Goals
Reveal Interdependence Promote Pluralism Bridge Distances Facilitate Exchange Empower Personal Agency
Netflix Reveal
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Design lead: Andrew Schlesinger
Netflix Reveal is a campaign that uses the streaming video service as a touchpoint for raising awareness of just how interconnected our world really is.
Key Value Revelations occur when an essential resource is removed from access.
By leveraging existing calendared days — such as Gay Pride day, A Day Without Immigrants, Indigenous People’s Day, Ramadan or Rosh Hashanah — the extension makes shows that correspond with that community unavailable for a day. Once users know the what, Netflix Reveal invites them to learn why — and then do more.
Interventions
Proposal Remove media content where individuals involved in production are members of a community currently under siege through cultural or political warfare.
Netflix Reveal is a platform extension that demonstrates how barren our entertainment landscape would be if we were to eliminate the contributions of people whose cultures are under siege or suspicion. By highlighting a subset of the many dependencies that intersect in our globalized world, Netflix Reveal aims to counter the notion that some countries and cultures are less valuable than our own, building a bridge across the empathic divide that seems to be widening. It reveals our interconnectedness through the removal of those whom we thought we could do without.
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Challenge Little understanding of our dependency on many cultures and people for media production.
Netflix Reveal
Challenge
Opaque Visibility to Media Production Xenophobic views of other peoples and cultures — whether they live in foreign countries or are immigrants to our own — have seen a resurgent normalization in recent years. What those who ignore human rights violations in Syria or call for the deportation of “illegals” fail to recognize is how dependent we are on the skills, talents, insights, wisdom and cultural influences of people around the globe. Specifically, they have a skewed understanding of how globally connected the entertainment media landscape truly is.
When we label groups as outsiders and deem them enemies or strangers, we preclude the possibilities that might emerge when we bring our creative energies together in common purpose. How can we reveal to viewers our deep reliance on creative talents everywhere in the world, leading them to respect and ultimately support basic freedoms for people everywhere?
Value Reveal through Scarcity. Netflix Reveal makes the invisible visible by illustrating what the world of entertainment would look like without the significant contributions of people from around the globe who contribute in significant ways to a critical facet of the user’s daily life.
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Netflix Reveal
Building Bridges. A bridge is created across cultures as people recognize their need for a multiplicity of human contributions. Representation. Emphasizing visibility encourages young men and women of color to imagine themselves in similar roles in the media landscape. Action. It inspires action by pushing the passive observer to consider and support the people who power their daily lives.
Measures of Success Near Term
Long Term
Extension downloads and active users
Financial contributions to advocacy groups increase, along with demands for greater support
Positive feedback on the platform and via social media
Engagement in political action
Interventions
Buy-in from media platforms
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Viral hashtags #RevealRacism #RevealReality #RevealConnection #RevealTruth #RevealtheReal
1. Notification pop-up when the website is launched
2. To learn more... pop-up
How it works 1. Media Partners. This MVP could be immediately offered to streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO, Showtime, YouTube Red.
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Netflix Reveal
2. Ad Campaign. Launch an ad campaign; including a targeted entertainment-influencers campaign to leverage the industry’s insights and social circles. 3. Not Available! Once applied, the extension identifies relevant days on the calendar and renders all relevant properties unavailable for the day. 4. Learn More. Viewers opt to learn more about the Day, issues of concern in that community, and relevant organizations that offer support/advocacy to that community.
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Interventions
5. Take Action. The final step invites viewers to take action in support of communities under siege or suspicion, using their social and economic capital to activate change for others.
Current (Before)
Representation Map (After)
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A dataset that includes the national origin of media contributors is extracted from public resources like IMDB and populated/tagged with relevant days of protest or cultural celebration. From there, a minimum viable product is developed through a Chrome browser extension through a partnership with a streaming service like Netflix. Partnerships are also built with advocacy groups and celebrity superconnectors to spread the word and ignite action.
Interventions
Next Steps
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Netflix Reveal
Project ProjectGoals Goals
Reveal Interdependence Promote Pluralism Bridge Distances Facilitate Exchange Empower Personal Agency
Omidyar Network + SVA
3/
Ask me about...
Design lead: Mahya soltani
Ask me about... is a plugin for ride-sharing apps that recalibrates the power dynamic between driver and rider by giving the drivers more agency to shape conversations initiated in their cars.
Proposal A ride share add-on that allows drivers to choose the subjects they want to talk about, and have the option to teach the riders a few words in their mother tongue.
Ask facilitates greater agency on the part of drivers, determine how and to what extent they want to engage by allowing them to alert rider to their preferred topics. The app empowers drivers to discreetly avoid repetitive questions that “other” them like, “What’s that accent” or “What kind of name is that?”
Key Value Meaningful cultural and social exchange.
Drivers are also invited to list the languages that they feel comfortable conversing in, which potentially alleviates the anxiety that accompanies making small talk in a non-native tongue. Riders and drivers are prompted to teach their passengers words or phrases in the languages they know as a form of cultural exchange.
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Challenge No meaningful exchange between riders and drivers in ride sharing trips.
Interventions
Ask me about... is a plugin for ride-sharing apps that recalibrates the power dynamic between driver and rider by encouraging passengers to ask their drivers questions that the drivers are interested in.
Ask me about...
Challenge
No Meaningful Connection
Strangers meet in the close confines of a car service encounter. Drivers may encounter dozens of new people each day, and with each the possibility of an encounter that goes well . . . or one in which they are ignored, demeaned, or worse, harassed or assaulted.
Ask Me About facilitates a new level of dialogue as the vehicle for cultural exchange, while centering the driver as the meaningful agent of change.
How can design facilitate a more equitable relationship between service professionals, like ride Ride sharing’s tendency to create moments where share drivers, and the customers they encounter in people from different cultures and backgrounds share spaces where trust, dignity and equity are necessary a small space is an opportunity that cannot be missed. but not assured?
How can design facilitate a more equitable relationship between service professionals, like ride-share drivers, and customers they encounter in spaces where trust, dignity and equity are necessary but not assured? Having people with different cultures and backgrounds in the same space for a certain amount of time is an opportunity we can’t miss. We want to reinforce the inherent dignity and worth of drivers by facilitating new forms of dialogue during ride sharing trips.
Value Pluralism. Ask Me About promotes pluralism by giving both drivers and riders a peek into each other’s social lives, interests and experiences.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Ask me about...
Agency. It facilitates more agency on the part of drivers who may feel belittled by conversations that treat them as “strangers.” Dignity. It capacitates drivers’ and riders’ capacity for meaningful cultural exchange.
Long Term
More drivers choose to engage with their passengers and do so for longer
Adoption of more inter-language words and phrases in English
Improvement in ratings for riders / drivers exchanged through the app
Less social anxiety and social aggression around language / dialect
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Near Term
Interventions
Measures of Success
Omidyar Network + SVA
Ask me about...
How it works 1. Profile. Driver profiles include a prompt for users to list languages they speak, preferred subjects and other conversational data they would like to share. 2. Ride Alerts. As the rider waits for their car to show up, they receive a message with details about the driver and, if the driver is open to engage, the list of conversation topics.
3. Conversation Topics. During the ride, the passenger may initiate a conversation about one of the topics the driver has pre-selected. 4. Language Preference. If one of the preferred data points is a language the driver speaks, the rider gets another pop-up within the app that lets them choose words they want to learn from their driver’s language. 5. Microaggression Alert. The app records the number of times the driver hears othering language like “Where are you from,” “What’s that accent,” or “What kind of name is that?” If a passenger uses that language, the app pings them with a “Microaggression Alert” that provides statistics on how many times the driver has heard that question in the past 48 hours or week. The app then helpfully suggests a new line of inquiry such as, “Offer some information about your own cultural heritage. Perhaps the driver will share a related story with you.” 6. Post-Ride. If new languages, words or phrases were exchanged during the ride, they are included in the ride receipt. They also receive a helpful reminder of any Microaggressions that occurred during the ride.
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Interventions
7. Feedback. The feature includes a feedback mechanism to gather further reactions of drivers and riders alike and adjust the platform accordingly.
Ask me about...
Reference “Fair Trade” is an example of giving voice to individual product providers in other cultures whose work is valued — socially and economically — on the global market. Picture: Getty/Jf-Jacobsz
Next Steps To bring Ask Me About to life, we would conduct co-creation workshops with drivers to develop the concept further based on their patterns of experiences and needs. Once iterations have been made, the team would partner with a ride-sharing service to pilot the
Picture: The Lyft Rider
Interventions
Picture: Shinola - The Journal
Lyft started as a community car sharing service where riders were encouraged to sit in the front and fist bump the driver as they got in the car, interacting throughout the ride, creating a sense of community built on driver-rider equality.
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Shinola, The Detroit-based watch company honors the valuable contributions of everyone in their production chain, elevating the role of labor through visibility and agency.
program in a desired location. The launch would be advertised through an ad campaign and promotional offers. The program could then be expanded to more cities and ride-share platforms.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Ask me about...
Project Goals
Reveal Interdependence Promote Pluralism Bridge Distances Facilitate Exchange Empower Personal Agency
plus plus minus
Omidyar Network + SVA
4/
Design lead: Mahya soltani
Plus Plus Minus is a dating and social networking app that matches users with people who agree with them — two-thirds of the time.
Key Value Encourages exchange between people who would not usually end up meeting in real life or within other online platforms.
From there, the app leverages the swiping and match-making affordances established in other popular dating and networking apps (i.e., Tinder, Bumble or Huggle) to drive the user experience. Since 61% of Americans aged 18-29 have previously used a dating app, this should guide a process that is familiarly engaging. To avoid further polarization — a.k.a. shouting match showdowns on the first date — the app prompts users with useful conversation starters and pings them if it senses that the engagement is shifting from dialogue to debate.
Interventions
Proposal A dating / social app that matches people who disagree on one out of three subjects.
Plus Plus Minus is a dating and social networking app that matches users with people who agree with them — two-thirds of the time. The app shifts the paradigm, inviting users to meet — romantically or socially — and explore conversations they might otherwise never have a chance to begin. The platform matches users on a “two-thirds” model, meaning that a user’s list of “matches” consists of people who answered 66.7% of questions the same way. These questions appear as a list of binary choices that users scroll through and answer as part of their profilecreation process.
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Challenge Meeting people exactly like us leads to confirmation bias and lack of perspective.
plus plus minus
Challenge Filter Bubbles
We tend to surround ourselves with like-minded people, creating social, religious, political and economic bubbles that shield us from the more complex realities of the world. Even when we go online to find a friend or partner, the platforms that exist are designed to leverage our desire for “same” over “other.”
interests values beliefs
interests values beliefs
Fig. 1
While most existing dating/social apps aim to find the closest match for their users(Fig. 1), plus plus minus intentionally looks for a 66.66% match for every user (Fig. 2).
This tendency towards confirmation bias has led to an epidemic of intellectual isolation that leaves even the most “educated” individuals with a dangerously narrow perspective. It’s a self-reinforcing trend that appears to be accelerating, fomenting political polarization, normalizing hate and fanning the flames of racism.
Fig. 2
Value Pluralism. Plus Plus Minus promotes pluralism by highlighting what we have in common with people we mostly consider to be different, emphasizing the breadth of our shared experiences.
Omidyar Network + SVA
plus plus minus
Representation. It helps burst (or at least expand) our filter bubbles, increasing the cultural and ideological representation in our individual spheres. Building Bridges. It brings people together who wouldn’t normally end up in the same circle, encouraging dialogue while discouraging debate.
Long Term
Increase in number of users, successful matches and real-life meetings.
Methodology is adopted by other dating / social apps across more spectrums of difference, encouraging users to develop new forms of mental flexibility and an appreciation of functional pluralism
Positive feedback on the platform and via social media
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Near Term
Interventions
Measures of Success
Launch app
Pick sides
Confirm
Swipe
Match!
Chat
Omidyar Network + SVA
plus plus minus
How it works 1. Issue Selection. Pick a side on 3 polarizing issues. 2. Match Recommendations. The app matches you on 2 out of 3 subjects. 3. Person Selection. ‘Swipe left’ (skip/reject) until you find an intriguing match. 4. Match Set. If two users ‘Swipe right’ (show interest) on each other’s profile, ‘it’s a match!’ 5. Chat. You and your match can start chatting on the platform, either using provided prompts or ad lib. Plus Plus Minus encourages you to find common ground before moving on to topics that may be polarizing. 6. Meet. If the digital conversation goes well, you can meet your match in real life. The platform will continue to prompt you (as needed) to keep the conversation going in interesting new directions.
Looking for a Date / Friend?
Interventions
Swipe right to like
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Swipe left to skip
plus plus minus
Reference The app leverages the swiping and match-making affordances established in other popular dating and networking apps (e.g. Tinder and Bumble) and similar to location based apps like Huggle, it can make match-making possible in real life.
Tinder
Bumble
Huggle
By connecting through Plus Plus Minus, these open-minded individuals might become the “superconnectors” whose friendships serve as bridges between disparate communities.
Omidyar Network + SVA
To turn Plus Plus Minus from a prototype into a product, we would leverage psychographic profiling data to drive a targeted approach to our initial user outreach. While the existence of this sort of data gained infamy through Cambridge Analytica’s unethical appropriation and use of Facebook’s user info during the 2016 US presidential election, Plus Plus Minus could be used to identify people who are receptive to new experiences and ideas.
Interventions
Next Steps
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plus plus minus
Project Goals
Reveal Interdependence Promote Pluralism Bridge Distances Facilitate Exchange Empower Personal Agency
Omidyar Network + SVA
5/
Dish
Design lead: Qixuan Wang
Dish is a VR experience that immerses its users in the history of a culturally-specific dish—and reveals how interwoven our culinary histories really are.
Key Value Create understanding and empathy for other cultures..
Made by a campfire? Served at a roadside stand? Eaten as part of a ceremonial meal? Taken as a curative for illness? Dish immerses the user in a virtual, multisensory experience of a dish’s story to prepare users for the next step: a specially-cooked meal with other people in the real world.
Interventions
Proposal An full-body experience where users immerse themselves in a single dish from the cultivation of its key ingredients all the way to the dinner table.
Dish is an immersive experience, powered by virtual reality, that transports users over time and space to experience culturally-specific dishes. Participants experience the harvesting of ingredients, kitchen and dining preparations, and ultimately the enjoyment of a meal.
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Challenge The cultural divide is a source of anxiety that prevents us from appreciating the depth and breadth of our collective experience.
Dish
Challenge Cultural Divide
In an increasingly polarized political landscape, we have witnessed our capacity to demonize, exclude and alienate anyone we identify as “other.” This cultural divide is a source of anxiety that prevents us from appreciating the depth and breadth of our collective experience. It leads to misunderstanding, conflict and discrimination. We are forfeiting connections with our universal experiences and values, the facets of our being that bind us together as humans. Forms of cultural immersion that bring people into direct contact with other cultures – extensive travel, global sector work, multiethnic neighborhoods – may not be available to the majority. How can design facilitate a wider range of cultural experiences to broaden perspectives and build empathy?
Emergent technologies can offer immersive experiences that approximate, if not replicate, cultural exchanges that happen through travel. These tools can be used to bring people virtually closer to one another — in the hopes that they ultimately engage with each another in person. As a universal experience, food offers an easy path to cultural empathy. Food is ceremonial, cultural and communal. It nourishes and nurtures. Personal and shareable, it is element and eloquence. Food is culture, and food bridges cultural divides. While cultures may be differentiated through the use of specific ingredients, tools and methods of preparation, food itself offers a unifying thread that runs through all of us — the need to eat and the need to share with a friend, a loved one and a community, while we nourish our bodies.
Opportunity Emergent technologies can offer immersive experiences that approximate, if not replicate, cultural exchanges that happen through travel. These tools can be used to bring people virtually closer to one another — in the hopes that they ultimately engage with each another in person. As a universal experience, food offers an easy path to cultural empathy. Food is ceremonial, cultural and communal. It nourishes and nurtures. Personal and
shareable, it is element and eloquence. Food is culture, and food bridges cultural divides. While cultures may be differentiated through the use of specific ingredients, tools and methods of preparation, food itself offers a unifying thread that runs through all of us — the need to eat and the need to share, with a friend, a loved one and a community, while we nourish our bodies.
Value Awareness. Almost all culturally specific cuisine has emerged as the result of transcultural contact. Transcultural food experiences like Dish reinforce the ways in which our global foodways have been interconnected for millennia.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Dish
Acceptance. Acknowledging the differences among cultures affirms the value that each brings to our collective experience. Reduced anxiety. Collective dining builds community and addresses cultural anxieties, breaking down barriers by introducing new cultural experiences that can be shared. Inspiration. Virtual immersion gently introduces users to the actual sights, sounds, smells and tactile experiences of a universal domain, which can be translated at the user’s discretion, into the domains of reality.
Near Term
Long Term
Report positive associations with other cultures
Meal kit purveyors adapt their offerings to reflect a shift toward new cuisines and meal-sharing experiences, including providing opportunities for more cross‑cultural storytelling on their platforms
Share experiences via social media
Increased patronage of transcultural restaurants and food purveyors
An increase in passport applications and international travel
Interventions
Measures of Success
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Viral hashtags #Dish #MyDishList #DishVR #DineandDish
Dish
Development of each dish
Experience with suit and VR
Origin of ingredients
Growing ingredients at fields
Cooking the traditional way
Distribution of dishes
How it works Imagine a grain of wheat. One simple ingredient can produce the ramen noodle slurped at a roadside stand, a Challah loaf kneaded and braided to celebrate the weekly Sabbath or fry bread munched at street festivals just about everywhere in the world.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Dish
For now, imagine that wheat forms the crust of your favorite Neapolitan pizza. Where can that simple grain of wheat take you? To 18th century Naples where modern pizza emerged? To the fields where grain is cultivated? Across the Atlantic to South America where tomatoes originated? Back to the dairy pastures of Southern Italy where sheep are raised for their milk? Seeing the care with which each ingredient is chosen to form that very specific dish.
VR: Sense of sight & sound Suit: Sense of touch
Interventions
Now take off your VR goggles and body suit, and sit down to a meal with friends and strangers, experiencing in real life what you just witnessed in your mind. With the shared VR experience, you can all now dine and dish about the places you traveled, the sights, sounds and smells of faraway or long ago . . . and where it might take you next.
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Booth: Sense of smell (Environment)
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Omidyar Network + SVA
Dish
Reference Syrian Supper Club Picture: Matt Katz/WNYC http://www.npr.org/
Next Steps A functional version of Dish could be offered through an existing platform like NYT VR in partnership with local restaurants that provide the post-VR experience dine-ins.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Dish
Virtual Arcade - Dinner Party Tribeca Film Festival 2018
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Interventions
http://www.tribecafilm.com/
Project Goals
Reveal Interdependence Promote Pluralism Bridge Distances Facilitate Exchange Empower Personal Agency
Omidyar Network + SVA
6/
Access to Internships Program Design lead: Andrew Schlesinger
ATI is a program that facilitates collaboration between communities and local businesses to provide summer internships to local youths in an equitable, background‑blind way. Access to Internships (ATI) ‘blind matches’ high school students with local internship opportunities through close collaboration between communities and local businesses to support their particular economic and social needs.
Proposal Connect students from disenfranchised communities to summer internship opportunities through a ‘blind matching’ system.
Students opt in by completing an application that shares their learning goals but withholds all demographic data including gender, race and address. Companies opt in by attending a facilitated workshop in which they develop a coordinated, purposeful internship initiative based on a core set of principles: inclusion, equity, dignity, exchange. ATI business participants build social equity for the community and increase their own social capital as participants in a coordinated endeavor.
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Key Value Build social capital for young students who are missing the opportunity.
Interventions
Challenge Internship opportunities are limited to communities of existing privilege through insulated social capital.
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Omidyar Network + SVA
Access to Internships Program
Challenge
Insulated Social Capital How many summer internships are acquired through a family member or a friend? Having just a little social capital in a community can give young people a foothold for gaining more, empowering them to make connections, acquire knowledge and develop skills. But for marginalized students, building their own social capital from scratch can be too big a mountain to climb — and as a result, they end up even further behind their privileged peers. Our society’s tendency to favor connections over qualifications has created a dearth of diversity in companies and entire industries, widening our already-existing achievement gaps between communities.
In 1970, the top five orchestras in the U.S. had fewer than 5% women. But that decade, orchestras began using blind auditions to vet new musicians: candidates would sit on a stage behind a curtain and play for a jury who can hear them, but can’t see them. By 1980, some of the top orchestras began to hit the 10% women mark. By 1997, they were up to 25%. Researchers have determined that this step alone makes it 50% more likely that a woman will advance to the finals. How might we use a similar approach to redesign how companies recruit and select their summer interns?
Opportunity In 1970, the top five orchestras in the U.S. had fewer than 5% women. But that decade, orchestras began using blind auditions to vet new musicians: candidates would sit on a stage behind a curtain and play for a jury who can hear them, but can’t see them. By 1980, some of the top orchestras began to hit the 10% women mark. By 1997, they were up to
25%. Researchers have determined that this step alone makes it 50% more likely that a woman will advance to the finals. How might we use a similar approach to redesign how companies recruit and select their summer interns?
Value Build social capital. ATI supports the social and economic well-being of each community member, building social capital for individuals, businesses and an increasingly interconnected community.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Access to Internships Program
Diversity, Inclusion and Representation. Workplaces benefit from the range of representation that blind matching affords. Internship opportunities may ultimately lead to a reduction in employment discrimination and alter HR practices. Co-Creation and Agency. A community-based program that is co-created with businesses across industries gives all parties a voice in determining the needs of the community. The modularity of the system across the national-local ATI platform reinforces social-emotional flexibility among all participants.
Measures of Success Near Term
Long Term
Adoption rate by companies
Retention between students and companies
Double-blind study that follows kids who grew up with ATI vs non-ATI in the same community
Viral hashtags #ATISuccessStory #ATIPride #ATIProud
Inter-city networks of potential hires based on established metrics of success 109
Increased college admission rates and/or employment rates
Interventions
Reports of user enthusiasm and satisfaction
Access to Internships Program
School 1
School 2
School 3
Omidyar Network + SVA
Access to Internships Program
How it works 1. Program Development. Business leaders participate in a co-creation workshop with designers, human resource leaders and community advocates to create a location-specific internship program that harnesses the strengths of the student population with the specific socioeconomic needs of the community. 2. Application Assistance. High school students work with guidance counselors and ATI facilitators to develop their user profiles and review the range of available internships, which include information about which skills might translate across industries. Applicants indicate their top 3 internship choices. 3. Blind Match. ATI facilitators “blind match” interns and opportunities. This core team provides support services and feedback opportunities so that interns have a clear channel for checking in on their work and addressing issues outside of a workplace where they may feel uncomfortable airing their concerns. 4. Feedback. At the end of each engagement, ATI receives meaningful feedback from the intern and the business. Interns and facilitators rate the business (à la Uber); employers and facilitators provide further support and recommendations for the intern.
Business 1
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Business 3
Interventions
Business 2
Access to Internships Program
1. Local businesses collaborate to develop a community-based internship program that values all forms of employment, facilitated by ATI based on its core principles: equity, dignity, inclusion, exchange.
2. Guidance counselors and ATI facilitators help students create their profiles and review internship opportunities
School 1
Business 1
School 2 Business 2
School 3
3. ATI facilitators review opportunities and applications based on needs, skills and goals. All demographic data is withheld.
Business 3
4. ATI ‘blind matches’ students with businesses to create a summer internship class
6. ATI monitors the program throughout the internship period, providing mediation, guidance and support, as needed.
7. ATI provides meaningful feedback to ensure that students receive helpful critique and guidance. Businesses are rated and offered feedback about how they can improve their program.
8. At the end of the summer, ATI reconvenes to celebrate their work. Selected students present their summer work to the community. ATI promotes awareness via social media to encourage engagement.
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5. Diverse mixture of high school students from the community work together in internship class
Interventions
Omidyar Network + SVA
Access to Internships Program
Access to Internships Program
Reference Inspired by the symphony blind auditions which increased gender parity Picture: Oliver Krause Blind Audition - Kurzfilm
Next Steps Once the digital platform’s design is finalized, the ATI team will identify a target community to pilot the program. The ATI program team will collaborate with local business, education and civic organizations to develop and facilitate a co-creation workshop that is inclusive and equitable for all voices. Additional, independent ethnographic user research would help the ATI team understand the pilot community’s unique economic and social landscape.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Access to Internships Program
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Interventions
With this information in hand, the ATI team would then determine the precise structure and methodology of all of program components: the blind matching process, onboarding and internship activities, and feedback mechanisms. The team would then be ready to launch ATI program with a school-to-school campaign promoted via local news organizations and business networks.
Project Goals
Reveal Interdependence Promote Pluralism Bridge Distances Facilitate Exchange Empower Personal Agency
Omidyar Network + SVA
7/
Nanny+
Design lead: Andrew Schlesinger
Nanny+ is a service that promotes cross-cultural awareness from infancy by rethinking how childcare providers and parents find and partner with one another.
Proposal Bridge the community of child care provider and host family via shared care of children and split locations.
The platform invites families and caregivers to build meaningful family bonds for their children by coordinating child care to maximize play, sharing and learning across cultural and socio-economic boundaries from infancy. Parents and caregivers are nudged to create the world they want to see by giving them the means to bridge the divide between the caregiver’s world and the host family’s. United in a nurturing and caring space, they are more likely to exchange cultural experiences and forge lasting friendships. In addition, host families must ensure that their home and the caregiver’s home provide equal capacity for care, which incentivizes the host family to pay an equitable wage.
Key Value Cross-cultural pollination between very young children.
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Challenge Power imbalance between cultures and communities for in-home child care.
Interventions
Nanny+ is a service that promotes cross-cultural awareness from infancy by rethinking how new parents find and partner with childcare providers.
Nanny+
Challenge
Power Imbalances in Childcare Children develop social cues about in-groups and out-groups from infancy. Their ability to identify and classify familiar or friendly faces is defined by who they see most; and they form judgments based on proximity, engagement and the reactions of their nearest and dearest. Where meaningful relationships with perceived out-groups is not fostered, bias and prejudice take root. Unchallenged over generations, this lack of perspective can foment extreme power imbalances between cultures and communities. How can we leverage cultural diversity in childcare to instill in young people of varying socio-economic means a broader perspective of their in-group? Structured, community- or neighborhood-based arrangements that bring young children into direct contact with one another under the care of a family caregiver can foster new cross-cultural relationships
at the earliest ages. Young children plant the seeds of understanding at the earliest ages, which conditions them to recognize a great variety of people within in their in-group, an experience that lasts a lifetime. Incentivizing families and caregivers to partner in the care of children across socio-economic conditions may lead to a new set of conversations, solutionbuilding and normative attitudes that empower all participants. Additionally, ritualizing elements of the relationship reinforces that the care relationship is more than a service transaction, and that the bonds they form are an essential element of a larger cultural exchange. The reality of the disparity become the incomes and cultural representations of caregivers and the families for whom they care is acknowledged and then leveraged in pursuit of dignity, equity and representation for all parties in the care relationship.
Value Power Recalibration. Caregivers are given greater agency in determining the scope of what they can and should provide the host families they partner with.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Nanny+
Cross-cultural pollination. Young children are implanted with the seeds of understanding from the earliest age, conditioning them to recognize a greater variety of people as part of their in-group. Bridging Divides. This closer relationship reduces feelings of cultural anxiety by disrupting boundaries and borders. New Rituals. Ritualizing elements of the relationship reinforces that the care relationship is more than a service transaction, and that the bonds they form are an essential element of a larger, shared purpose.
Long Term
Adoption rate of +1 service and location sharing over time
Surveys of children that grew up with +1 and location sharing
Positive responses aggregated by survey and direct feedback to the platform
Implicit bias test results comparing control group and new care arrangement children
Viral hashtag #Nanny+Love #Nanny+Fam #Nanny+Us
Double blind study following children who grew up in +1 and location sharing vs. control, • Friendships over time • Language development • Achievement gap in school • Employment equity • Weak ties vs. strong ties in social network
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Near Term
Interventions
Measures of Success
Omidyar Network + SVA
Nanny+
How it works 1. Opt In. Caregivers and host families opt into the system by providing their personal data and care skills/needs. 2. Facilitated Workshop. Both groups attend a facilitated workshop to meet the entire Nanny+ community in their area. 3. Matching. Caregivers and families are matched in part by choosing one another and through a facilitator who establishes whether they are a good fit based on a set of established criteria related to skills and needs. 4. Mediated sharing. Care teams are brought together with the complete group of adults and children who will become partners in care to establish specific care needs and to share cultural experiences, including languages, food opportunities, religious or spiritual expectations, etc. 5. Feedback Mechanism. A central mediator is available via the platform to ensure that all parties involved - caregivers, host families and children - are able to provide feedback and express concerns.
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Interventions
6. Community Bonding. The central mediator facilitates regular group co-creation activities/ meetings with the entire care team and the entire Nanny+ community in order to reinforce the continuing bond.
Nanny+
Current situation
Proposal I: Sitter + 1
Proposal II: Split Location
Next Steps Expansive research is the first essential step in realizing this initiative. Child psychologists, educators and medical professionals will contribute to a clearer understanding of the complex dynamics at play. A pilot program would then be launched in a chosen location through partnership with an existing caregiver platform, such as SitterCity or Care.com.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Nanny+
An ad campaign to promote the launch would leverage both the partnered caregiver platform and ground floor care agencies in the community as channels of outreach. The campaign would drive interested parties to a Nanny+-facilitated community orientation.
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Interventions
Coming out of this event, families would be matched with care providers, and feedback protocols would be clarified to help monitor progress. Feedback would be requested periodically throughout the pilot to inform further iteration and extension to new locations.
Project Goals
Reveal Interdependence Promote Pluralism Bridge Distances Facilitate Exchange Empower Personal Agency
Omidyar Network + SVA
8/
CareShare
Design lead: Jennifer Rittner
CareShare is a new economic model for caregiving that empowers care providers to ask for the support and benefits they need.
Key Value Shared and equitable care for the community.
Additionally, CareShare facilitates a CareShare Pair: caregiving teams that hold each other accountable and provide support as needed throughout their long-term care relationship. Our children and elders deserve the best care. Improving the lives of those who care for them should be a priority.
Interventions
Proposal A new economic model to provide care within a community through shared resources and coordination.
CareShare is an economic model that empowers the entire caregiving community to access the care they need. The platform serves as an organizing body that represents the needs of caregivers by bringing them into new, co-equal relationships with families in their care.
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Challenge Power imbalance between caregivers and host families for in‑home care.
CareShare
Challenge
Power Imbalances in Childcare Caregivers nurture our community’s most precious resources: babies, who hold the promise of the future; and elders, who pass along stories and heritage. There is a stark imbalance in our current caregiving system in which those who provide care for the most vulnerable members of society are themselves not provided with adequate care.
This imbalance is reflected in how caregivers are compensated for their time. The national average gross weekly salary for full time live-out nannies is $705 (2012 INA Nanny Salary and Benefits Survey), while the average annual income for personal care aides is only $20,560 (Bureau of Labor Statistics). Three out of 4 home health aides receive no medical benefits whatsoever (www.payscale.com). CareShare aims to recalibrate this relationship through a radical, systems-focused rethinking of the caregiving dynamic.
Value Power Recalibration. Caregivers are given greater agency in determining the scope of what they can and should provide the host families they partner with. Cross-cultural pollination. Young children are implanted with the seeds of understanding from the earliest age, conditioning them to recognize a greater variety of people as part of their in-group. Bridging Divides. This closer relationship reduces feelings of cultural anxiety by disrupting boundaries and borders. New Rituals. Ritualizing elements of the relationship reinforces that the care relationship is more than a service transaction, and that the bonds they form are an essential element of a larger, shared purpose. Partnerships. Working as a care team with a facilitated community structure addresses the isolation many caregivers feel when they are left alone with an elder or infant for long periods of time.
Building Culture Together Intergenerational Storytelling - Elders work with facilitators to turn their oral stories into visual spectacles using performance, illustration and animation.
Neighborhood “Walking” Tour – Members of the community present their neighborhoods to the caregiving teams. Each “tour director” works with a local historian and an elder in the community to chart the most interesting stories and places. Transcultural Sewing/Art Kits – Sampler kits that Someone in the community creates a walking tour draw on languages, color palettes and visual symbols map to distribute to participants; another arranges from many cultures, co-created by caregivers and adequate ambulatory accommodations for children, facilitators. These could become patches, pillows, wall elders and any disabled participants; and someone art, laptop stickers, t-shirts, etc. posts the map. Community members are invited to share their reflections on the platform and via social Lunch Bunch – Caregivers and host families media to keep the conversation going. This initiative coordinate periodic lunch gatherings in which a empowers everyone in the community to be an expert menu is established by members of the community on their neighborhood, articulating the people, places and all able-bodied participants contribute a resource and stories that are most meaningful to them. In or skill, such as bringing ingredients, meal prep, this walking tour, everyone has value, not just the setting the table, serving, photographing the event, “rich or famous.” posting on social media, and writing thank you letters to participants. Each lunch bunch meal is artdirected by a different member of the community and participants take turns performing the roles.
Omidyar Network + SVA
CareShare
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Interventions
images via Pattern Observer: (Top-Left) Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles 1991, (Top-Right) Bitter nest: The home coming 1988, (Bottom-Right) Who’s afraid of Aunt Jemima, (BottomMiddle) Mother’s quilt, (Bottom-Left) Tar beach 1990
CareShare
How it works 1. Co-creation and Agency. A facilitated conversation with caregivers determines how best to organize and establish their needs. 2. Platform Development. A central platform is created for the community of care for a particular location, ranging from micro locations such as neighborhoods to macro locations such as an entire metropolitan area. 3. Relationship Scope. Caregivers and host families opt in by signing a contract establishing their relationship with the care community. Within the contract is the establishment of platform demands: salary (including overtime pay rules), medical benefits, personal/sick leave and personal accommodations. Each caregiver has a rider on their contract that establishes their particular needs, including accommodations related to travel, uniform purchase and maintenance, healthcare accommodations, personal child or elder care needs, etc. The host family signs their contract with the CareShare organization/platform as well as, once matched, with their CareShare Pair team. 4. Orientation. Caregivers and host families participate in co-facilitated, co-creative training workshops to meet one another, build a rapport within the community and facilitate conversations around specific caregiving needs, as well as cultural matters related to language, cultural or religious rituals, and food choices. 5. Match. Caregiver teams and host families are matched and meet one another with a facilitator in a neutral space to participate in a co-creation exercise to establish their bond, and review and sign their contract. Caregivers are never sent to a client’s home without a facilitated engagement to establish the coequal nature of the caregiving relationship. 6. Feedback Mechanism. The central platform serves as a space for conflict mediation and routine check-ins to hold all parties accountable and ensure that concerns are being addressed.
Next Steps The process of bringing CareShare to life begins with co-creation workshops that bring caregivers, child psychologists, educators and medical professionals together to address questions of equity and incentives. Based on insights gleaned there, the CareShare team would then collaboratively develop a pilot program that ensures financial equity, meaningful engagement and appropriate feedback mechanisms.
Omidyar Network + SVA
CareShare
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Interventions
An ad campaign to promote the launch would leverage both the partnered caregiver platform and ground floor care agencies in the community as channels of outreach. The campaign would drive interested parties to a CareShare-facilitated community orientation. Feedback would be gathered continuously after launch, informing further iteration and adaptation for new locations.
Project Goals
Reveal Interdependence Promote Pluralism Bridge Distances Facilitate Exchange Empower Personal Agency
Omidyar Network + SVA
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Consort
Design lead: Smruti Adya
Consort is a program that creates new connections in rural communities by giving young people a chance to drive their elders.
Key Value Creating new norms for intergenerational engagement.
With Consort, emerging adults develop selfconfidence and responsibility, further incentivized by earning points on their license and reductions in their insurance through demonstrated safe driving. Elders benefit by extending their independence on their own terms.
Interventions
Proposal Ride share service that connects youth and elders and uses the vehicle as a means to create space for interaction.
Consort is a youth ride-share platform that provides emerging adults in low-density communities with access to cars, connecting them with elders who need access to transportation. The platform leverages mutual need to build meaningful, intergenerational relationships.
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Challenge Age and transportation gap in suburban / rural areas leading to isolation and polarization.
Consort
Challenge
Age Gap / Transportation Access Elders and teens both report an increasing sense of isolation and purposelessness. They both can feel disconnected from a society that doesn’t always see the value they each bring: wisdom and insights, energy and a desire for community. The consequences of unchecked isolation among teens and the elderly can be grim. Teens seek recognition for their achievements and potential, and when they don’t receive it from healthy sources, they may engage in unhealthy behaviors. For the elderly,
Liberty Mobility Inc.
loneliness has a high correlation with coronary heart disease and generally poor health outcomes. In the US, the propensity towards isolation is most extreme in rural communities, where elders are reliant on public transit services for basic needs like shopping, medical visits and social calls. Design can leverage the shared needs and complementary capacities of these two communities in ways that could improve their lives — and the wellbeing of their communities.
Cycling without Age in Denmark
Value Intergenerational Relationships. Elders and teens share, learn and inspire one another. As the ride relationship evolves, they may develop bonds beyond the transaction. Each participant also discovers new information about their community that is typically shared only within an age cohort. One trusting relationship can improve the health of the community as a whole.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Consort
Accountability and Responsibility. Consort builds in an accountability mechanism to ensure the safety of all involved. Since the ride transaction exists within a larger Consort community, and a feedback mechanism is built into the platform, elders have multiple channels to report drivers who mistreat them. Economic Incentives. Safe drivers are rewarded by lowered insurance rates. And by proving their responsibility to their community, they earn social capital that they can leverage for the rest of their lives. Mental Health Benefits. Elders who feel more connected and less have better mental health and cognitive function for longer.
Long Term
Adoption rate by participants in a community
Reduction in feelings of isolation through surveys and reported by community elder care and health agencies
Expansion to more towns
Increase in social capital
Reductions in reckless driving by young adults
Local job growth
Active participation, as indicated by social media and as reported by participants
Increase in community engagement 133
Near Term
Interventions
Measures of Success
Consort
How it works 1. Application / Vetting. A door-to-door and online ad campaign invites elders, teens and their caregivers to join Consort. All applicants are vetted to ensure their safety.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Consort
2. Community Building. Approved applicants attend a community-building orientation (rides are arranged for all) in which they meet and select potential Consort matches. Facilitated by Consort, the event features sharing activities. 3. Matching. Elders and youth are matched for personality, proximity and need. A structured arrangement is established to ensure that rider and driver schedules are in alignment. 4. Rides. During the ride, participants are prompted by the app to share stories about locations they know or remember, including landmarks and personal anecdotes, which can be shared on the digital platform or via social media. 5. Community Bonding. Events are arranged periodically to reinforce the community, establishing continued accountability and giving participants an opportunity to share their experiences.
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Interventions
6. Feedback / Mediation. A feedback mechanism ensures that all parties are heard and concerns are addressed appropriately.
Consort
Potential Partnerships Zipcar – Consort could partner with Zipcar to provide cars in rural locations. One hour driving an elder would equal one hour of personal car use. Picture: Getty Images
Next Steps The Consort team works with local organizations and businesses in a community to ensure that cultural needs are understood and addressed. Next, the team would establish commercial partnerships with a national car-share provider like Zipcar, and/or a local car dealership. Once the pilot program has the full approval of the community, Consort could begin replicating and adapting the successful model in additional communities.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Consort
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Interventions
Local churches – Unused cars could be donated to a local church or pooled by the parish or supporting community. The church would then act as the physical hub for Consort events and driver recruitment.
Project Goals
Reveal Interdependence Promote Pluralism Bridge Distances Facilitate Exchange Empower Personal Agency
Green Garden Rewards
Omidyar Network + SVA
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Design lead: Will Crum
The Green Garden Rewards program is a social credit system that captures the value of community gardens — and puts it to work.
Key Value Creates new incentives for participation and an extra layer of connection between gardens and markets.
It functions as a philanthropic injection of capital into a system that provides participants with immense long-term benefits, but few short-term incentives. Green can be earned by selling or donating produce, attending educational or community-building events, leading an educational event, or as an hourly wage for volunteer gardening work. Each gardener has a Green account number that the manager uses to log the Green they earn. Green can be spent on produce grown at community gardens, local farmer’s markets or gardening supply purveyors. A young gardener with a healthy Green balance could leverage it as proof of their commitment to the community, parlaying their way to a seat at the decision-making table in their own local garden.
Interventions
Proposal A social credit accounting system that quantifies the value of community garden work. It can be earned or spent at gardens and markets city-wide.
The Green Garden Rewards program is a social credit system that captures the value of community gardens — and puts it to work.
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Challenge Community gardens can feel daunting to newcomers, and their efforts can feel invisible. Furthermore, gardens are generally disconnected from one another.
“[The garden] was one of the big positives in my life — I met some great people. I got close to [BK Rot founders] Sandy and Renee…and they helped me a lot in a difficult situation. I don’t think I would be here — where I am today — without them.” Trevon (Right)
Omidyar Network + SVA
Green Garden Rewards
Community Gardens Community gardens are models of healthy interdependence: they attract people from diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds; unite neighbors around a common goal; and facilitate the creation of new power dynamics not influenced by who participants are outside the garden. Anyone is free to join and participate, provided they abide by the rules established by members. Gardens have tangible benefits, as well. They provide fresh food in urban
food deserts and increase biodiversity, serving as habitats for wildlife that might not otherwise survive in cities. They also offer psychological relief for those who crave refuge from city stimuli, small oases at the intersection of structure and nature. In short, urban gardens feed, heal, protect, unite and empower their communities.
feel overwhelming: do you prefer one with a head gardener or a senior board; do you want the flexibility to grow edibles for home use or florals or perhaps a crop that can be transformed into a line of products?
Would-be gardeners may have the desire to join but intimidated by a sense of exclusion projected by gardens near them. They might find lengthy wait lists for plots or the requirement for a lengthy period of community volunteering before they can claim their own plot. If the garden near them is unavailable, they may find that the next closest is an inconvenient distance or requires a difficult commute. The variety of garden managerial structures may also
The opportunity for design is to seize on the need for and momentum of the urban community garden movement, leveraging its strengths and activating the opportunities that will yield greater participation, increased return on participants’ investment, improved equity and access for those in need; and greater individual and community exchange.
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Inclusive, independent and self-organized, community gardens can show members what it’s like to be part of a system where they have a voice and agency but there are barriers to entry.
Interventions
A Rich but Fragmented Tapestry
Green Garden Rewards
Value Economic equity. By quantifying garden participation in a way that can be spent and shown, Green Garden Rewards creates incentives for volunteer participation that are immediately tangible. Rather than currying favor for a handful of senior gardeners in the hopes of earning their good graces, young gardeners can volunteer with the confidence that their good work is being counted.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Green Garden Rewards
Collective Endeavor. A common currency between gardens adds another layer of connective tissue between them, encouraging greater cross-pollination (especially at educational events). Broader perspectives. Community gardens already broadens the perspectives of the young people who join them — and green widens that world even more.
Near Term
Long Term
Pilot program members are earning and spending (%)
New self-organized inter-garden collaborations form
Greenmarket vendors successfully accept Green ($)
Other cities adopt and adapt the platform Interventions
Measures of Success
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New member recruitment and retention improves
Green Garden Rewards
1. Discover The program is promoted through signage at gardens and markets — as well as targeted ads.
2. Volunteer Earn Green by volunteering at a local garden. A master gardener logs hours to the worker’s account.
3. Attend A ttending educational or community-building events is another way to earn Green.
4. Spend F armers’ markets and community gardens accept Green as payment.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Green Garden Rewards
Use It to...
=
5 / hour
•
Buy produce (at gardens or markets) or materials
=
5 / pound
•
Leverage standing (waiting lists, decision making, etc.)
=
5 / event
=
20 / lecture
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Earn It
Interventions
5. Lead The amount of Green a gardener earns over the years becomes a badge of honor — proof of one’s commitment to the community.
Green Garden Rewards
References Local currencies
Customer rewards programs
Omidyar Network + SVA
Green Garden Rewards
Next Steps To determine the best outreach and implementation strategy, the design team will consult with key organizations in an urban agriculture system. User interviews and testing will yield a Green-accounting system that is attractive to digital natives but appropriately analog for non-technology users. Most critically, identifying pilot locations and a seeding budget will determine the scope of the initial rollout.
Interventions
Potential Partnerships
Garden outreach via GreenThumb
Financial assistance
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Ecosystem integration in Greenmarkets/Â Schools
Project Goals
Reveal Interdependence Promote Pluralism Bridge Distances Facilitate Exchange Empower Personal Agency
Omidyar Network + SVA
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Elevator [Early Concept Stage]*
Design lead: Jennifer Rittner
Elevator is an urban rooftop gardening initiative that brings food desert communities together by creating an elevated farm that they all share.
Key Value Equitable, community-based food system.
* In addition to the more fully fleshed out proposals included here, the team ideated a few concepts that are in need of further development.
Could a radical leveraging of rooftop spaces, incentivized by cities and states, offer more opportunities for gardens in atypical and underutilized places? How can designers engineer functional gardens in elevated spaces, as well as design regenerative energy systems that feed communities and even fuel dwellings? How can these spaces be leveraged to address food injustices that disproportionately affect those already living in poverty? Gardeners have already begun looking up to find the solution. A recent spate of functional medium-yield rooftop gardens in urban areas gives hope that a more structured, integrated system is possible, one that empowers local communities through incentives and provides fresh produce in areas that have been food deserts for far too long. Engineering and design can transform elevated gardening from a small-scale pipe dream to a nourishing reality for communities in urban areas around the world.
Interventions
Proposal A new economic model to establish rooftop gardens that build equity and offset cost.
Decreasing food miles improves our carbon footprint, but urban areas have limited real estate on the ground to accommodate substantial community gardens. And the locations where gardens do grow may be prohibitively far or offer limited space for many would-be participants.
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Challenge Limited real estate for urban farms.
Elevator
Proposal Elevator is a policy initiative that incentivizes the development of multi-building rooftop farms that are engineered to feed and fuel the communities where they’re built. While speculative in nature, this proposal asks what a city can do to optimize its elevated real estate in order to feed and generate energy for an ever-growing population. Gardens create organic waste that can be repurposed as biofuel, which can in turn serve as a supplemental, sustainable energy source for the community. And the more neighbors who opt in — block by block — the greater the benefit to all. Cities that meet the challenge receive federal subsidies as they move residents off centralized energy grids and lower the aggregate mileage of the food consumed there. More local open-air produce markets can emerge, offsetting the need to travel to more centralized markets — or to buy imported produce from supermarkets. As an additional benefit, residents who participate in the cultivation process will gain gardening skills, learn engineering know-how, engage in purposeful outdoor activity, and eat a more nutritive diet. Each garden block will develop its own harvesting rituals, creating new forums for intra-community bonding through communal meals or seasonal festivals. All garden blocks are incentivized to feed the hungry and homeless, bringing indigent populations into the common weal of community care. Importantly, there is an equity mandate that requests labor from those who are able but does not mete out punishment for those who cannot. The system thrives on that equity, the recognition that there are a variety of skills, talents and abilities that contribute in their own way. As Elevator grows and expands, neighboring communities can develop produce trading systems, using local currencies like the Green Garden Rewards program.
Value Feeding Hunger. By concentrating food production in food deserts, Elevator makes fresh produce accessible for those who need its nutritive benefits the most. And by mandating that food be shared with the neediest in each community, Elevator ensures that it is a benefit felt by all — not just those with access and ability.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Elevator
Collective Endeavor. A community that grows its own food as a shared effort is inherently a close-knit one. When everyone has a material interest in how effectively their neighbors garden, the community is sure to learn and grow together. Economic Incentives. When a community’s rooftop garden is running as well-oiled machine, residents will save money on both their grocery and power bills.
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Interventions
New Rituals. By creating new customs, habits and recurring events around a shared resource, Elevator weaves a new connective tissue between neighbors.
Project Goals
Reveal Interdependence Promote Pluralism Bridge Distances Facilitate Exchange Empower Personal Agency
Gift Trip [Early Concept Stage]*
Omidyar Network + SVA
12/
Design lead: Smruti Adya
Gift Trip, a cross-country, gift exchange, pop-up that functions at the intersection of traditional pen pals and eBay. As the Gift Trip truck stops in different cities, people give and receive objects of personal significance — gifts to and from strangers that can become the seed of a new and special bond.
Proposal A traveling pop-up across cities where people give and receive objects of significance as gifts and form bonds around the exchanged gifts.
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* In addition to the more fully fleshed out proposals included here, the team ideated a few concepts that are in need of further development.
Interventions
Key Value Building bridges of trust with strangers through acts of sharing and joy.
Gift Trip
How it works 1. Members of a community are invited to send meaningful objects as gifts with a story narrating its significance to them.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Gift Trip
2. The gifts travel to a different city, state or country where other people come to send and receive gifts. 3. Once someone receives a gift, they are connected to the gift-giver through the object and accompanying story.
Once the person receives the gift, they are connected to the person that sent it and form a bond around the gift and its story
Interventions
These gifts travel to a different city / state / country where other people come to send and receive gifts
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Members of a community are invited to send meaningful objects as gifts with a story narrating its significance to them
Project Goals
Reveal Interdependence Promote Pluralism Bridge Distances Facilitate Exchange Empower Personal Agency
Finding Your Roots, PBS Hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Omidyar Network + SVA
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Props! [Early Concept Stage]*
Design lead: Jennifer Rittner
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* In addition to the more fully fleshed out proposals included here, the team ideated a few concepts that are in need of further development.
Interventions
Props! is an Influencer campaign for the Interdependent Age. A facilitated, recorded one-onone interaction with a warm and engaging researcher/ media personality makes young celebrities aware of their interdependency with individuals in surprising places: a musician learns the cultural history of an instrument or style that influenced their own work; a fashion icon learns the transcultural interactions that led to the development of their favorite garment — and they get to discover the individuals who brought it to life. Each episode would be distributed on social media so it could be easily shared through the celebrity’s own cultivated audience.
Project Goals
Reveal Interdependence Promote Pluralism Bridge Distances Facilitate Exchange Empower Personal Agency
Interdependence Design Institute
Omidyar Network + SVA
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Design lead: Alexia Cohen
Interdependence Design Institute is a communal and open resource multi-platform initiative that fosters awareness of healthy interdependence and initiates co-created, selfregulating systems that celebrate pluralism and diversity. Interdependence Design Institute is a communal, open-resource, multi-platform initiative that fosters awareness of healthy interdependence and initiates co-created, self-regulating systems that celebrate pluralism and diversity. The institute leverages existing social circles to bring more people into connection with one another around action that benefits us all. IDI initiatives would center around three domains:
Amplify: Projects that amplify key interdependencies are designed to get the viewer to reflect on their own interconnectedness, and how they might assume greater agency within that system. As a result, they tend to take the form of campaigns.
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Interact: These IDI projects are intended to create opportunities for interaction and discussion of themes like interdependence, pluralism and diversity of experience.
Interventions
Reveal: IDI is envisioned as the umbrella organization that encompasses projects developed during this design sprint and creates a platform for others to join in. From the most implementable to the most speculative, these projects are all meant to ignite conversation, ideation and action.
Interdependence Design Institute
What We Face Today Our contemporary moment finds us caught in a vicious cycle of increasing polarization, a division that breeds and is bred by anxiety and isolation. We believe that design can heal this rift by facilitating meaningful conversations and interventions with seemingly divergent communities in ways that: • • • •
Respect each person’s inherent dignity and worth. Bring people together across cultural experiences to learn from and share with one another. Reveal the ways in which all people are interconnected and interdependent. Reinforce our collective needs and capacities to care for one another despite our differences.
We have an opportunity to build on the good work being done around the world by uniting its momentum under a single umbrella, encompassing their shared values and principles and articulating them as a unified voice. By supporting these ventures, IDI can bring together our varied, interconnected concerns and co-create more inclusive paths toward positive change.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Interdependence Design Institute
How it works 1. Shared Principles. IDI may take many forms as it is co-created and facilitated by individuals in their own communities based on a shared set of principles established by the central IDI platform. 2. Facilitate. Facilitators and participants are selected first by members of the Omidyar/IDI team, but then a “Tag, You’re It!” methodology will be used to bring in new participants. An initially inclusive, representative and diverse group will be necessary to ensure that their impact ripples outward into even more diverse and inclusive spaces. 3. Co-create. Activities are co-authored, facilitated and shared publicly to express a range of concerns: media landscape, political speech, cultural exchange, language learning, social-emotional learning, resource distribution, etc. 4. Gather. IDI gatherings happen in spaces where participants feel creatively engaged and safe to explore.
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Interventions
5. Iterate. A feedback mechanism creates space for dialogue and material for constant improvement — but is moderated for polarizing speech.
Interdependence Design Institute
Potential Partnerships Global Interdependence Center International dialogue experts Interaction Institute for Social Change Inclusivity consultants The ID Project Buddhist Organization Living Interdependence Institute Non-violent training
The ID Project Buddhist Organization
Living Interdependence Institute Non-violent training
Do tanks (Action driven) Interventions
Think tanks (Research driven)
Interaction Institute for Social Change Inclusivity consultants
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Global Interdependence Center International dialogue experts
Omidyar Network + SVA
Interdependence Design Institute
Interdependence Design Institute
IDI on the Road Mobile, pop-up experiences provide opportunities for engagement, wherever you live. Similar to mobile libraries and art trucks, these experiences are highly interactive, allowing participants to engage around the making of an artifact that brings them into conversation with the larger IDI community — online and in-person.
IDI on the Road Moodboard
Next Steps IDI begins by establishing a founding team and assembling a board of advisors. This group would investigate potential domains for further exploration and investment, as well as develop new workshops and interactions through research and testing.
Omidyar Network + SVA
Interdependence Design Institute
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Interventions
As demonstrated throughout this initiative, the ethos of the Interdependence Design Initiative should be on doing and making. Only with design can real dialogue happen. We look forward to seeing what IDI can do for the future of Interdependence.
Design Team Interviews
Smruti Adya Alexia Cohen Will Crum Andrew Schlesinger Mahya Soltani Qixuan Wang
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1/ 2/ 3/ 4/ 5/ 6/
Omidyar Network + SVA
Design Team Interviews
1/ Smruti Adya MFA Products of Design, School of Visual Arts, ‘18 Tell me about someone you rely on. My roommate. She shared the house and the rent with me. I rely on her for company and a sense of belonging. Who relies on you? How do you demonstrate that they can continue to call on you? Well, my mom relies on me for a lot of image editing or when she needs some presentations made for her work. She will send them to me and I do it for her. Do you think there’s something you do to reinforce for her that she can continue to rely on you? Yes. First of all I do it, I never complain about. And then whenever I send it back to her, I’ll say, “Let me know if you want me to
make anymore changes.” It lets her The community garden has a know that it’s okay to keep asking. huge probability for success on a large scale. It would definitely What drove you to want to work bring smaller neighborhoods on the Interdependence Project? and communities closer, and give Do you feel that you have a them more agency over what personal stake in this work? they’re eating. I’ve always seen the whole world as interconnected. Putting up barriers Which design do you like the doesn’t make sense to me. That’s most for personal reasons? why nationalism doesn’t make The gift exchange. sense to me. If it were up to me, I would get rid of all the countries. Did you learn anything new or I would have free movement surprising in the course of doing everywhere. I understand this work that you would like the practically that’s not possible or Omidyar Network to consider? even governable, but there might I don’t know if it’ll be surprising be a better way than this. to them, but when I was reading some statistics about the number of Which design concept developed elderly people in the United States, during this process do you think I learned that only about 14% of would have the greatest capacity older people in rural areas have for meaningful change? access to a car. That seems really
Omidyar Network + SVA
What is giving you hope right now? I was meeting a friend yesterday and we were talking about hopefulness and hopelessness. I
Is there a question that emerged during the process that you would personally like to explore further? I’m interested in the idea of how memes have become a cultural phenomenon. There’s a very nice positive community around memes. On sites like Imgur, people post personal stories and then only
positive comments will feature to the top. It’s a nice, self-selecting system where people are supportive of others. I’d like to explore that further. What one design is deeply meaningful to you in your own life? My watch. It was a gift from my sister. It doesn’t really function as a watch anymore because it’s a smartish watch and it keeps getting disoriented. I can sometimes tell the time on it, but nobody else can. I made this strap for it recently. I just love it.
Meet the Design Team
What do you think ON will do with this work? I hope that they’ll invest in some of these projects, get them pilot launched and tested. If the results are encouraging, let’s keep it going.
was feeling very negative but he has a hopeful, positive outlook. As he was talking through it, I remembered a lot of things I’ve read these past few weeks and it reinforced the hope.
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low in a country that’s heavily dependent on cars as a mode of transportation. How can we address their needs?
2/ Alexia Cohen MFA Products of Design, School of Visual Arts, ‘18 Tell me about someone you rely on. My mother. For family, love, support. She very much relies on me also for all of that. She’s far away, so it’s an interesting form of reliance in that we only really talk to each other on the phone. Our relationship is facilitated by Skype.
and talk about our work and help each other. I think she relied on me a lot, but it was a pretty mutual reliance, I would say.
would lose their entire clientele. The biggest impact this type of work can have is finding ways to either amplify the impact of these existing systems or finding ways of What drove you to want to work replicating them for different kinds on the Interdependence Project? of communities. Do you feel you have a personal stake in this work? Which one design concept I’d been thinking about the kinds developed during this process Who relies on you? How do of systems I belong to that might do you think would have the you demonstrate that they can be considered interdependent, greatest capacity for meaningful continue to call on you? like the Park Slope Food Coop, change? My friend and former classmate, where everyone has to put in a Netflix Reveal. That came directly Manako. When we were in graduate certain amount of work so that the from the GOSO interviews. The school together, we were engaged whole system keeps moving. It’s main insight from that research in a constant back and forth, not a perfect system, but there are was that as soon as access to their critiquing each other’s work, but mechanisms in place to make it so local deli was removed by a protest, also making sure we were eating that everyone has a say in how the they realized that they depended on well and taking care of our health. system is governed. It makes us all an entire nation of people. I think We cooked for each other. It wasn’t aware of how interdependent we we take a lot of things for granted scheduled or anything. It would be are with the farmers upstate and and it’s not until those things like, “Oh, I’m cooking lunch. Let me all the suppliers. There are farms disappear that we realize how much just cook a second portion for her.” that solely supply the co-op, so if we depend on them. Very organic. Then we would sit the co-op were to disappear, they
Omidyar Network + SVA
What’s giving you hope right now? I think the fact that our political rhetoric has been shaken up in the past few years has yielded an amazing amount of movement and activism. People are realizing that they can’t sit back and relax. We have to be civically engaged.
Even in the design world, a lot more companies are doing this kind of work. That’s very exciting. So I’m hopeful that the momentum we have right now keeps us moving in the right direction. Tell me about a design object or experience that is deeply meaningful to you. Can it be music? Sure. There’s a guitarist, Stephane Wrembel, who plays in my neighborhood every Sunday. I didn’t realize he had been doing that for the past 15 years. The skill and the emotion that he’s able to portray through his instrument; that is what gives me the most joy right now.
Meet the Design Team
What do you hope ON does with this work? Even if it just sparked new research avenues for them that they wouldn’t have thought of without the design process, that would be amazing. There are so many initiatives out there that are already
doing great work. The challenge is to make it available to more people. I think design and systems thinking have a huge role to play in that. But we should also resist the urge to formalize all of these community-built interventions, because then they become part of a bureaucratic system. The beauty of these community-based models is that they’re not part of a system of rules and oppression. They’re very organic and there’s value in that.
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Did you learn anything new or surprising in the course of doing this work that you would like to share with Omidyar? I loved reading Arturo Escobar’s book and his idea of the Pluriverse. He writes, “Designers play a new role. A facilitator, activist, strategist or cultural promoter.” I think if we could all wrap our heads around this idea of becoming facilitators, activists, strategists and cultural promoters, not just designers, we’ll accomplish great things.
3/ Will Crum MFA Products of Design, School of Visual Arts, ‘18 Tell me about someone you rely on, and what need of yours they fulfill. My parents, especially in this transitional phase, post-graduation. They fill a material need of cash liquidity while I embark on a job quest. It’s obviously not the only need they fill. Emotional support.
Ever since the election I’ve been struggling with this epiphany of disconnection that I have with so many people in this country. I felt sort of betrayed, not by everybody else, but more by the information that I’d surrounded myself with. When I realized that the view from my vantage point was so incomplete, I wanted to better Tell me about someone who understand the different groups relies on you, and what you do to and dynamics that connected and reinforce the sense of connection disconnected us. with them, so that they knew they can continue to rely on you. Which one design, if It’s a mutual reliance with my implemented, would have family. There’s a strong emotional the greatest capacity for bond that we keep fresh by talking meaningful change? on the phone and catching up on A design principle we kicked each other’s lives. There’s a lot that around is that the earlier you can goes into maintaining a healthy intervene, the more significant relationship. Listening to each the impact you can make. Nanny+ other is key. is a way to facilitate cultural connections from an early age. What drove you to want to work And the perspective shift that on this Interdependence Project? could engender, the early seeds of Do you feel that you have a intercultural empathy that might personal stake in the work? plant, I think is pretty exciting.
Which designs do you like the most for personal reasons? I’ve been leading the charge on a project around community gardens. Urban agriculture is something that has fascinated me for a couple of years. Populations continue to rise, while the ways in which we cultivate food, and the foods that we eat are no less inefficient, and they say there could be a massive food shortage by as soon as 2050. We already see examples of that today across socio-economic lines in food deserts and urban centers. I’m excited to continue researching and facilitating design around this challenge. Did you learn anything new or surprising in the course of doing this work that you think Omidyar should be aware of or consider? One framing of poverty that I’ve found pretty guiding is that while
Omidyar Network + SVA
What are you plans after the project is over? I want to be ideally working in a space where my work has social impact. I’m probably going to go pencils down in the urban agricultural community garden space since I’ve encountered new resources and made connections during this process.
What’s giving you hope right now? I think it’s awesome that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won the primary in the fourteenth [Congressional district in New York City].
Tell me about one design that is deeply meaningful to you. The New York City subway system. It’s a perfectly egalitarian system. The values of the train are enforced by passengers. Should you give up your seat to the pregnant lady, or the elderly person, or the child, or should you take your backpack off so you’re not bumping people? These are rules that we decide and enforce as a group. And the fact that it costs the same for everybody, whether you’re coming from East New York or the Upper East Side. I love the principles of mass transit. It’s a type of inclusive design that I think can be a shining light.
Meet the Design Team
What do you hope Omidyar will do with this work? I would like Omidyar to see it as an example of how cocreation and research can happen simultaneously.
Is there one question that emerged during the process that you would like to explore further? How do we combat tribally-instilled attitudes of exclusion toward others. A lot of that is passed down through powerful and influential relationships with family and community. But what tool, what array of tools might we give the next generation to help them critically interrogate divisive values that have been handed down.
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it is definitely a lack of resources, it’s also a lack of connections and access. That’s been helpful for me to frame the power dynamics and imbalances at play in these interconnected systems.
4/ Andrew Schlesinger MFA Products of Design, School of Visual Arts, ‘18 Tell me about someone you rely on. I rely on my father for advice, often career- or financial-related; but also general ideas or how I’m thinking about a problem. I rely on his wisdom and advice. Who relies on you? How do you demonstrate that they can continue to call on you? My aunt asks me for graphic design help regularly. Usually after I help her and she says thank you, I say something like, “Any time.”
to bridge the political divide. The goal was to leverage the coffee shop as a place of conversation, civil discourse and debate. The idea of a place to have conversation led to one of our core design principles: dialog, not debate.
I’ve leveraged a variety of experiences in my life to connect to the topic. I played a lot of sports growing up, and then I went to the University of Michigan, which is a very sports-driven institution. So on the one hand I was deeply involved in team sports but I never What drove you to want to work developed an overwhelming team on the Interdependence Project? pride to the point of animosity. I Do you have a personal stake in played for my school, but also on this work? club teams that were a collection I was initially most interested in of athletes from other schools. the high-level thinking around Even then I understood, “Well, of social impact and social innovation, course I can’t hate this team. I know particularly as a design researcher. these people, and they’re perfectly But as we dug into it, I realized that wonderful and nice and cool and it connects with a lot of other work we’re friends.” The flexibility to that I’ve done, like “Talking With switch teams made me question Strangers,” which was an initiative blind allegiances.
Which one design, if implemented, would have the greatest capacity for meaningful change? Nanny Plus. I think the cultural exchange that would occur and the rebalance of power would change the way that we see communities that provide childcare. Which design do you like the most for personal reasons? The community garden work, because I think it’s a space that’s just ripe for growth and involvement in communities. As Will [Crum] has shown, it’s rich in research, but not rich in design, and I think there’s an opportunity there. Did you learn anything new or surprising in the course of doing this work that you would like to share with Omidyar? I had an “Aha” moment when Alexa Courtney shared the graphic of the path to extremism. What are the conditions that make a
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Is there one particular question that emerged during the process that you would like to explore further? I’m continuing to research the tension between assimilation and maintaining culture. What are the conditions for a community to welcome new people in without stripping them of what they bring, but also maintaining the community that already exists for what it’s worth and what it values. What is giving you hope right now? Not reading the news. That’s tough right now. Places like Omidyar give me hope. Reading their
mission statements and what they’re working on and hearing from passionate people at that organization, that gives me hope. Grassroots movements, which make us all more aware of issues in other communities, and ripple effects of that work also gives me hope. We’re inundated with information but some of the right information is creating positive change in communities. Tell me about one design that is deeply meaningful to you. One of my favorite objects is a hammock. It embodies so much: it’s relaxation, but it’s outdoors, so it’s connected to nature. I have a camping hammock, so it embodies exploration. Mine is meant for two, so it’s intended for sharing. There’s also the experience of setting it up and find the right spot and settling into your spot, enjoying the adventure, the relaxation, all of it. There’s something very special about a hammock.
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What do you hope Omidyar will do with this work? I’m hopeful that Omidyar recognizes the need to use designers and action-oriented people as an arm of their research to keep the ideas grounded in people and communities. I hope that they will take some of this work into a co-creation, participatory design path to develop local interventions, businesses and concepts.
What are your plans after the project is over? I’d like to move into a research position, targeted at social, community-based initiatives or activities, and thinking about how we can live in a more equitable, just world, through the process of coauthorship and co-creation.
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highly interdependent system push towards extremism? What is that little bit too far? The journey she shared is a model for interdependent systems that can potentially branch in a way that we consider extremist or exclusionary to a fault: too many boundaries, perhaps, or the wrong sense of purpose. I think the surprising thing is seeing that as a model for deeper analysis.
5/ Mahya Soltani MFA Design, School of Visual Arts, ‘18 Tell me about someone you rely on. Here, living away from family, I rely on my best friend, Waleed mostly for emotional support.
What motivated you to work on The Interdependence Project? Do you feel that you have a personal stake in this work? The brief made so much sense to me. How we treat people is it Tell me about someone shouldn’t be based on their race who relies on you. How do or religion, or our prejudgments you reinforce that sense of of them, but we should always connection let them know that give people their platform and they can continue to rely on you? their voice to tell their story. So My business partner. We are very if I can do anything for that, that close friends and I think it’s the would be great. perfect relationship. We have different skill sets, so it’s a great I was born in Iran, and then I lived match. We’re every day grateful in Dubai for a long time. I just for each other. From time to time moved here two years ago and there’s situations that you have to left almost everything behind, prove that you are there, and they my family and everybody, just can rely on you, and they can count pursuing something I wanted. on you. Sometimes we’re busy and The moment you realize that we can’t see each other, just an out you made connections that are of the blue text, or, “Hope you’re completely done by you. You did it, having a good day.” you made friendships and business
relationships and all that. It’s a good feeling when you feel like you can grow your network. At the same time, you have another network that you’ve worked on for the past 30 years. It feels great, and I do definitely feel connected to all the people that I’ve known during my life. Does any of the current political climate inform the work that we’re doing here? Definitely. I’ve been directly affected by the travel ban, or the Muslim ban. As of now, I cannot leave the country, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back. Which design, if implemented, would have the greatest capacity for meaningful change? I love the community garden project. The possibilities of it
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Did you learn anything new or surprising in the course of doing this work, and if so, what revelations would you want people who are reading this to understand or consider? I don’t want it to be negative, but it always . . . I never understand how people can hate so easily.
What’s giving you hope right now? It’s hard to see the big picture and be optimistic. What’s easy is to see our daily lives, our daily connections we make, or things that we observe. People do good things. You see people do on the street or on the train. It usually does make my day when I see somebody being nice to other people.
What are your plans after the project is over? I would love to continue working on some of the projects we started,
Tell me about a design that is deeply meaningful to you. Does it have to be a design? Maybe something else. I collect a lot of stuff off the street, and one of them is this playing card deck that I’m collecting. I almost have a full deck now, and they’re collected off the streets. They’re just collected through the past two years. It’s just interesting, each one probably has a story. Every time I look at them, I wonder about their story, and how they ended up where they ended up. So yeah, I collect random things.
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if we have the platform. In general, I feel like what I learned during this project is going to affect other design projects that I’m going to work on. I’m going to consider bigger networks, and people that would be effected everything we do.
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growing and becoming several things, I’m excited to see where that goes. The planet is part of our journey, too. It’s not only people that are connected, but any time we connect to our host it reinforces that we belong here.
6/ Qixuan Wang MFA Products of Design, School of Visual Arts, ‘19 Tell me about someone you rely on. My parents. When I go back to China there’s always a home for me. I rely on my colleagues in this workshop to help me see things from a different perspective. Friends here [in the U.S.] help me explore more about this country and adjust myself to fit in.
sharing my hard times with her. We Which design do you like the show vulnerability to each other. most for personal reasons? The Mapping Toolkit that Alexia What drove you to want to work developed. Those kind of designs on the Interdependence Project? have direct impact on people’s My thesis next year is about perspectives. Also, the research I’ve LGBT in the era of social impact. been doing. I just discovered that This workshop is helping the first American pizza restaurant me think about it from a is right here in New York. It’s like, different perspective. “Wow, good to know. I’ll check it out.” Tell me about one person who Which design, if implemented, relies on you. How do you would have the greatest capacity Did you learn anything new or let them know that they can for meaningful change? surprising in the course of doing continue to rely on you? Netflix Reveal. You take something the work? My best friend back in China. We out of people’s lives and they will When we talked about the gun rely on each other emotionally. notice how important it is. That issue, I first believed, “There should When she is going through a tough insight from the user research was be no guns in this world.” Through time, I comfort her and help her very profound. our conversations I developed a less work through it. I reciprocate by rigid perspective.
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What’s giving you hope right now? The opportunity to expand this concept to other people.
Tell me about one design, object or experience that is meaningful to you? I recently visited the Museum of Fine Art in Boston. One work in the collection is a map of the world with random words people have written on it. It’s a design trying to let other people communicate with each other. I found it thought‑provoking.
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What are your plans after the project is over? I will incorporate the Interdependence concept into my thesis, as well as some methods we used during the process. Maybe I can bring this concept to the LGBT Community.
Is there one question that emerged during the process that you particularly explore further? Marc Dones said people don’t change. It’s an interesting challenge. How do we respect people’s differences but still want things to change?
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What do you hope Omidyar will do with this work? I definitely hope that they launch some of them. It would be nice to see how big of an influence we can create.
Picture: Interviewee after using the maps in Union Square, NYC
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Looking Forward
The Omidyar-PoD Interdependence project gives us hope. In exploring this theme through design, we know that we have just scratched the surface of possibilities. Our hope is to see some of these projects enter public discourse. We believe that user testing would yield new information and insights, bringing us closer to meaningful solutions for people to interact with beyond the walls of our graduate program. We believe that, if implemented, some of these initiatives would be life-changing.
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We thank the Omidyar Network, Roy Steiner, the wonderful ON team in Redwood City, our subject matter experts and the research participants who agreed to engage with us on these issues. Their time, insights and generosity give us hope.
Looking Forward
This project gives us hope that we can all be agents of change. That simply by asking these questions, bringing them into our collective consciousness, providing a shared language and instantiating them through design, we have initiated change. As our design team disperses and find new places to discuss and create design, we hope that their work on the Interdependence project continues to ignite new possibilities.
Faculty Allan Chochinov, Department Chair Jennifer Rittner, Faculty Department Administration Marko Manriquez Krithi Rao Alisha Wessler
The Omidyar Network A special thanks to Roy Steiner for inviting us into this exciting process of exploration and invention. A further debt of gratitude is owed to Pierre Omidyar for his wisdom in creating the Omidyar Network as a space for open dialogue, co-creation, knowledge sharing and meaningful change. Your work gives us hope. Let’s keep creating ripples in all of our ponds, wherever we are.
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SVA PoD Design Team Smruti Adya Alexia Cohen Will Crum Andrew Schlesinger Mahya Soltani Qixuan Wang
Contributors Alexa Forney Brian Crooks SVA Visible Futures Lab Research Participants Brandon Defreitas Ricardo Agaurd Julius Manigault Brandon Jones Jon Lindsey Joshua Lindsey Ian Waring John Holm Justin Pope Yanhong Zhao Zhentao Yan Trevon Massiah Alondra C Farouk Jahangir
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Acknowledgements
Book Design Mahya Soltani