A few weeks back, I was invited by my friend, and fellow product designer, Inna Alesina to give a talk about Humblefacture to the design community at MICA in Baltimore. It was nice to have an opportunity to thoroughly explain the principles of Humblefacture -- this was the most in-depth talk I've had the opportunity to give. More importantly, some of the questions that came up were very interesting (thanks to my friend David Troy, there were an interesting collection of VCs in the audience). In case you'd like to skip ahead, this link will take you straight to the Q&A.
Inna is also very interested in the materiality of design (Her book Exploring Materials: Creative Design for Everyday Objects is excellent), and she and I are collaborating on a student project -- The 100 Mile Design Challenge. The rules are simple - All materials and energy have to be sourcable from within 100 miles of your downtown. My students work from Seattle, Her's work from Baltimore. The MICA Trip was also a chance to meet with Inna's design class and talk about techniques and opportunities for the project. Stay tuned - we have been awarded space to exhibit this year at ICFF 2011!
Maybe it's the smell of pencils and college-ruled paper in the air, but politicians in the U.S. are going positively education-crazy. Arne Duncan, education secretary, gave an interview and speech disclosing radical overhauls of our current "No Child Left Behind" policy. President Obama urged students to stay in school, and work hard to learn the skills that would help them compete in a global market. There is good reason that these important people are spending time and effort looking into the affairs of children. Simply put, we have problems to large, numerous, and long-term to be dealt with by the current generation of workers. The question is, how can you train a generation to fabricate a new future without giving them the tools of fabrication?
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