First the really important news. Our visiting student scholar from last fall, Danila Zindato, is now Dr. Zindato. Congratulations, Danila! Her dissertation is: Design Scenarios: Approaches and Tools for Building the Future within Design Processes. Here’s a link to a public talk in Turku last Spring drawn from it. It was a terrific learning experience for both of us and I am pleased to have built a relationship with Danila and design folks. We have already agreed to work on an article together and I think it good for the Foresight program to be embracing design.
It was interesting to participate in the process, held at the Design Department of Politecnico Di Milano. The PhD candidates had already gone through an extensive critique. Thus, the Festival was less an examination and more of a celebration. I participated in one day of the week-long festival. Danila and one of our colleagues gave public presentations of their dissertations followed by a question-and-answer session. The “jury” convened after the presentations to review the candidates presentations and came back to publicly award their degrees.
After lunch, my co-jury member, Peter, and I each gave a lecture to the audience. Professor Peter Gall Krogh of Aarhus University, Denmark gave an excellent talk: “Drifting by Intention: Design Research from the Inside.” I then gave a talk, Future Friendly Design based on my recent chapter on the PDMA Handbook on Design Thinking.
In the evening, we had dinner across the fabulous Il Duomo. Thanks to HDCS Lecturer Chiara Colombi for instigating a wonderful festival and a satisfying collaboration that is just getting started. Andy Hines
