What does it mean to design a platform for social innovation?
Doors of Perception 8 on the theme of “infra” took place in New Delhi, India. The event involved designers and entrepreneurs from different parts of the world. Highlights included Margrit Kennedy, a world authority on complementary currencies, who anticipated the 2007- gobal financial crash. Kennedy went on to describe how non-cash economic systems are where a genuinely new economy is being born; networked mobile communications can be repurposed as enabling infrastructures for systems like local and complementary currencies.
A special session compared new design strategies in New York with those of New Delhi – two fast-changing, people-packed cities wherein diversity and relative disorder are key assets. Also notable was Debra Solomon’s ongoing quest to enable “nomadic banquets” – a journey round the city from street vendor to street vendor. There were presentations from Nokia, Intel, and Motorola on the the use of social research in the design of communication services.
Our partners in Doors 8, Centre for Knowledge Societies (CKS), presented an exhibition called “Used In India” with a collection of twentieth century media artefacts that told the story of evolving media cultures in India and South Asia.
Doors 8 concluded with a memorable (well, we remember some if it) Holi spring festival party.
