IN SESSION: The New Geographies of Innovation

Speaker Bios

John Thackara, founder of the Doors of Perception conference and a former Director of the Netherlands Design Institute, will explore three enabling conditions for system change: a capacity for ecological thinking; a focus on social infrastructure (rather than the concrete kind); and a shift of focus from place making to place connecting. How will this affect the work of design and designers? What role can companies play? And how far can we go to fix a cultural disconnection between the man-made world and the biosphere? 

Professor Jeremy Myerson is the first-ever holder of the Helen Hamlyn Chair for Design. An academic, author and activist in design for more than 35 years, he began his working life as a journalist and was founder-editor of Design Week in 1986. He co-founded the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the RCA in 1999, and his research interests focus on the role of design in social, demographic and technological change. A graduate of the RCA, Jeremy Myerson is the author of many books, chapters, papers and articles on people-centred and inclusive design. He is also director of the WORKTECH Academy and a visiting fellow at the Oxford Institute for Population Ageing and sits on the advisory boards of design institutes in Hong Kong, Switzerland and Korea. He leads Design Thinking and the Future of Work innovation masterclasses throughout the world.