Rewind. What design could have done better, starting from now.

In this talk, Colombo introduces the audience to a brief speculative journey into our world thirty years from now. She questions such a future, illuminates its pitfalls, and looks back to today, wondering: what could design have done better? What should we do differently if we had a chance to go back to…now?

She argues for the undeferrable necessity to design for human ethics and empowerment in a society driven by the push for fast and wild innovation, intelligent but inhumane machines, and data-intensive systems. Instead of stopping or merely surfing this gigantic digital wave, what tools do we have as design researchers to steer it in the right direction? What knowledge and skills can we offer to co-create our socio-technical future? And why are we too often left out of such conversations? By drawing on her research experience and examples from different domains, she discusses some directions for design researchers to re-humanize technology, towards a more just and caring future society.

Sara Colombo is an Assistant Professor of Designing Empowering AI in the Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Her research currently explores the role of design in envisioning and developing empowering solutions enabled by data and AI, with a focus on their societal and ethical implications. Sara holds a PhD in Design from Politecnico di Milano. Before joining TU/e, she worked as a researcher and lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Northeastern University (USA). During the pandemic, she founded and directed the global initiative Design for Emergency. She is co-founder of a US-based startup in the field of digital mental wellbeing. Her collaborative design research work was featured in international venues such as The Design Museum in London, Dutch Design Week, Ars Electronica, and Lille World Design Capital.