How do you lift up the middle class in a developing country?

That was the challenge facing Peruvian entrepreneur Carlos Rodriguez-Pastor, who hired IDEO to build an entire network of schools powered by a progressive new learning model. IDEO’s mandate: to redesign Innova’s entire K–12 learning experience, from the curriculum to the teacher training to the school buildings, with an eye toward expansion and a goal to provide international-quality education at an affordable price—about $100 a month.

Innova Schools is a part of Intercorp, a family of 35 businesses that span everything from banks to retail stores and added schools to its portfolio. In 2010, the company had five existing schools but realized that its existing model could not grow. The shortage of well-trained, high-quality teachers in Peru, combined with rising land costs, meant the schools would need to radically change course to succeed.

To learn about scalable school models around the world, IDEO researchers visited inspirational schools and learning programs, and looked to analogous systems like retail, hospitality, and health care to understand their approaches to scale. Throughout the project, they collaborated with teachers, students, and the Innova Schools team in co-designing the work itself.

Together, Innova Schools and IDEO developed the curriculum, teaching strategies, buildings, operational plans, and underlying financial model to run the network of schools.

"I was blown away by Innova Schools," said Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy. "It's inspiring to see such an affordable school deliver a quality of education that would rival schools in the richest countries."

The new Innova Schools combine teacher-led, project-based learning in small groups with self-directed time using digital learning tools. Teachers monitor students’ work online and offer personalized guidance. Parents can view their children’s progress online as well.

Dynamic learning environments include community spaces, media labs, rooftop study areas, amphitheaters, and cafés that are optimized for flexibility: furniture on wheels, movable walls, and efficient uses of space to allow for different modes of learning.

An online Teacher Resource Center includes a database of more than 18,000 custom lesson plans based on a progressive new teaching approach. The center helps teachers learn their craft and gives them a chance to connect across the network.

The business model of Innova Schools was developed at the same time as the school experience. Designers leveraged the economies of scale that come from building a network of schools and centralized tools, such as data systems that allow all the schools to learn together.

The project has allowed Innova to open more schools at an affordable cost to families, ultimately giving more of Peru’s youth the chance to compete in the global economy. This comprehensive approach to system design ranks as one of Latin America’s most ambitious privately funded educational projects, and is on track to become the largest private school network in the region. To date, Innova has opened 63 schools in Peru that are serving more than 50,000 students.

A good system design doesn’t end with strategy. The work on Innova Schools also had a huge influence on the company, according to Rodriguez-Pastor. Through the creation of new roles and an aligned set of values, Innova’s central office has become a much more nimble and creative organization. They’re constantly scanning the world for inspiration in how to best educate their students, while building out the new innovations. They realize that design thinking can become an integrated part of their daily management of this growing network of schools.

Western Digital, the leading provider of external digital-storage solutions and a pioneer in the field, and IDEO collaborated on a number of products that produced reliable, secure, high-performance hard drives for personal and professional use and have won numerous design awards.

The projects include:

• MyBook external hard drive: IDEO and Western collaborated to find a new design language for their external hard drive MyBook. In just six months, MyBook became the number-one hard drive in the Americas, and grew US market share by more than 50 percent.
• MyBook II: Looking to regain MyBook’s original number-one position in the hard drive market, IDEO and Western came together again to refresh the original design, finding ways to further differentiate the product and the brand, and winning a 2008 Spark Bronze Award.
• MyPassport: Western and IDEO designed the 320GB, ultra-portable USB-powered hard drive that appeals to the mobile user, which won both the 2008 IDEA Bronze Award from IDSA and BusinessWeek, and the 2009 iF Award.
• MyBook and MyPassport 3.0: Again, IDEO and Western collaborated on bringing the popular MyBook external hard drive to the next level in the hardware, the software, and the packaging. IDEO also created in-store merchandising, the graphics and information featured on product packaging (and the “out-of-box experience”).

The city of San Francisco wanted to help its people become better prepared in case of emergency. While no one feels totally prepared for a natural disaster, people who are most connected within a local network fare better in an emergency.

So the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management (SF DEM) and IDEO teamed up to create SF72, a revolutionary platform that helps to reach people where they are. In times of emergency, the city will need citizens to be self-supporting for 72 hours (or longer) before local services or outside help kicks in. With that in mind, IDEO developed an accessible platform to help people prepare for those 72 hours in simple ways that fit into their daily lives.

The SF72 website helps people with five important tasks: Get connected, gather supplies, watch stories, make a plan, and have access to an updated Google map. SF72’s content is hyperlocal, but IDEO and SF DEM also created an open-source toolkit for cities worldwide. From San Jose to Denver, other locales are using the simple toolkit to create a City72 platform of their own. Most recently, the city of Oakland collaborated with Code for America to develop its own platform. The City72 Toolkit enables SF72’s ethos of social connection for resilience to scale and grow—city by city.

Team Rubicon, formed in 2010 as a response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti, is made up of former military veterans who swoop into help in times of disaster. The organization started with six vets in the US who were eager to transfer their battlefield readiness in to frontline relief efforts, and has grown to more than 28,000 volunteers across the world.

To explore its growing global effort and to shape the future of the organization’s venture, Team Rubicon approached IDEO for help. After an 11-week collaboration with government, military, and veteran groups, a vision for Team Rubicon Global emerged. Inspired by sources as diverse as TED and The Hell’s Angels, the three-tier model consisted of an anchor network to share best practices across the organization and two supporting platforms designed to help countries with varying capacity and needs.

Team Rubicon Global coordinated its first deployment in April 2015, when a quake struck Nepal, sending US and UK teams to double down on the rescue effort. According to Vince Moffit, Team Rubicon USA Incident Commander, that incident alone validated the network effect of IDEO’s work. “We couldn’t have done this without Team Rubicon UK,” he said.

And for the veterans who are part of Team Rubicon, the shared desire to serve—applying skills ideally suited for disaster response—creates a renewed sense of purpose, community, and leadership that helps reintegration to civilian life.

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My main objective is to influence a user’s mood through automatic customization of virtual worlds—a tool that could, for example, help improve existing VR treatments for problems like phobias and anxiety disorders by automatizing the intensity of the experience. If the system were able to gauge an emotional reaction, it could ease participants into facing their fears. The same capability could be used to test different environments for mindfulness exercises, or even as a design tool, to help determine which designs elicit desired reactions.

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So far, most of the innovation we’ve seen in this space has come via proprietary systems like the HTC Vive controllers. But those kind of systems are very standardized and don’t allow users to experiment much with sensors. With that in mind, I built a platform with Unity and Arduino that would enable me to explore new interactions within VR environments, and allow other makers to test their ideas, too. I’m a big believer that as hardware and other tools become more accessible, makers will dig in and uncover even more immersive VR experiences.

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Using Unity and open source development hardware, I created an atmospheric space that can change depending on the user’s biosignals, as well as the amount of pressure they apply to sensors. To build it, I used Arduino and the eHealth platform, which can process the signal from a user’s heart rate, electrodermal activity, or breathing. In this case, I used the ECG sensor reader and developed a little piece of code that would translate the voltage signals into beats per minute, which were then sent directly to Unity via Serial. In Unity, I wrote a script based on Dyadica’s open code that constantly reads the input from the sensors and updates the scenario in each frame. For example, when the heartbeat goes up, the light in the virtual reality world changes to a more soothing blue; when it goes down, the illumination flashes and changes to red. The idea behind this particular interaction is to test whether changing color or lighting patterns will affect the user’s mood, either calming him down, or further agitating him.

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The results from these experiments were not completely satisfactory. Our users did acknowledge that changing the colors in the virtual world influenced their state of mind, but the changes in their biorhythms were small. One of the limitations of the system is the fact that heart rate is not an ideal indicator for mild changes in physiological activity. Electrodermal activity could provide a more accurate measure of comfort or distress, and we may turn to that in in future iterations.

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In another set of experiments, we used light and pressure sensors to change environments. In one virtual environment set on the coast, the light changes based on the light detected by a sensor set in the real world. Meanwhile, the size of the virtual space changes depending on the amount of pressure a participant applies to a sensor that is set in the same place on a wall in both the real and virtual worlds. The harder the user presses the wall, the smaller and more claustrophobic the virtual space will become.

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We’ve also been playing around with creating uncanny experiences. I started by 3D-scanning Rich Cahill, our newest interaction designer, then placed his 3D persona inside a virtual world. We then used a Leap Motion attached to the Vive headset to increase the immersive experience by allowing users to see their own hands in the virtual world. Then, we had Rich stand in the same place as his 3D model. When Rich raised his hand to touch his (virtual) face, he felt the warmth of his (real) skin under his fingers. Every single person who agreed to do the experiment found it unsettling. It was also really fun to make, and I learned a lot about how to replicate real objects and people in the virtual environment.

Right now, these enhanced interactions are just small steps towards a richer, and more immersive virtual experience. But I’m hoping this platform can be a template for other people to build their own interactive VR experiences. As more and more people dig into the technology, I'm sure we’ll see an explosion of creativity mixing the real and the virtual worlds—and maybe even creating new valuable hardware and platforms. Soon, instead of being passive characters in a prescribed world, we will be able to change our virtual environments to fit the state of mind that we would like to be in, and help ourselves relax, or even find inspiration. That’s when things will really start to become mind-blowing.

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As a designer, I am fascinated by exploring new ways to interact with virtual reality. Technology is able to trick our senses like never before, and we’re starting to see VR hardware like HoloLens and the HTC Vive really push things forward by allowing meaningful interaction between the real and the virtual worlds. One possibility I’ve been experimenting with is how we can create environments that can adapt to our emotional and psychological state.

1. Myths & Legends

“This podcast tells original stories that have become myths, in cultures ranging from the Romans and Greeks through to Disney princesses. Understanding how common themes have turned up in stories through the ages helps me think about fundamental human needs and behaviors that stay unchanged over time.” Listen here.

2. On Being

“This podcast considers the ‘big questions of life’ through interviews with creatives like Yo-Yo Ma, Paulo Coelho, and Sarah Kay. It reminds me that our human condition is so much more vast than we could ever fathom, and that the answers to the secrets of our existence are mere approximations, at best.” Listen here.

3. a16z

“This is an in-house podcast from the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which is famous for the phrase ‘software is eating the world.’ It’s not a ‘creative’ podcast per se, but it covers bleeding edge technology and indicates emerging fields and mediums for creative expression, new experiences, and potential effects on society at large.” Listen here.

4. Meet the Composer

“I find this podcast incredibly inspiring because it asks the listener to really engage with contemporary classical music. It's both exploration and art criticism, a prompt to get out there and listen more deeply, and a glimpse into a small and vibrant world that really only exists in New York and LA.” Listen here.

5. The Moment with Brian Koppelman

“Koppelman talks to creative folks about their creative process, how they do what they do, and the ‘moment’ that changed things for them. He's able to be very vulnerable, so his guests open up as well. This podcast always makes me feel more sane. Or at least like I belong to some really awesome club of weirdos.” Listen here.

6. Radiolab

“I’m inspired by the fascinating science and the polished stories, but most of all by the sound design. The way the show experiments with sound to tell better stories inspires me to think about how to make the experiences I create more engaging.” Listen here.

7. The Allusionist

“Linguistic adventures with the very funny Helen Zaltzman. This show reminds me that language is so mutable and fungible. And that when we humans talk with each other, it is a miracle that we know what the other person is saying.” Listen here.

8. Death, Sex and Money

“This is a podcast about the big questions in life. It reminds me of how to talk to people about sensitive topics and get deep insights from individual stories that speak to both the commonality and the variety of the human experience.” Listen here.

9. Magic Lessons

“Elizabeth Gilbert's creativity podcast features her interviewing people about how they overcome the fears that are inherent in the creative process, and calling up famous creatives to get their input. I like the fact that she actually provides advice to her guests, and acknowledges the challenges we all face in being creative.” Listen here.

10. Song Exploder

“Musicians and artists break down a track and talk about their process. A lovely parallel to any designer’s process. We hosted the creator of the podcast at IDEO earlier this year and he talked about his background as a graphic designer and how that’s influenced his approach to the show.” Listen here.

11. Becoming SuperHuman

“This show interviews people who have achieved ‘superhuman’ performance in their field in order to understand their strategies. The podcast provides insights into the lives of people who live at extremes, which provides inspiration for designing ways to meet more conventional human needs.” Listen here.

12. Imaginary Worlds

“This a is podcast about science fiction and fantasy worlds, both about how they are created and why audiences are able to suspend their disbelief. Of all forms of creativity, I figure that creating a fictional universe is the most expansive, and get inspired by such a broad-brush imaginative exercise.” Listen here.

13. 99 Percent Invisible

“This podcast reminds me that pretty much everything in the world has been designed, and that there are so many opportunities to improve things. I also love to hear the backstories behind things that have been designed and are now part of our everyday existence. It reminds me that so many things could easily have turned out differently.” Listen here.

14. Sampler

“Like the name suggests, this show features samples of other podcasts. I love it because it introduces me to other podcasts that I would never have known about or thought to try. And it's the unexpected or different stuff that turns out to be most inspiring.” Listen here.

15. TED Radio Hour

“This podcast repackages TED Talks into an accessible radio format. The way the show focuses on shared human themes, such as ‘growing up’ and ‘becoming wise,’ helps me zoom out my perspective and realize how the things I look at in life and in my work can be connected.” Listen here.

Honorable mentions: Surprisingly Awesome, The Memory Palace, Invisibilia, The Moth, WTF, Theory Of Everything, Planet Money, This American Life.

Check out the Creative Confidence podcast by IDEO U, our school to empower creative problem solving, here.

Thanks to Chris, Magen, Andrea, Grace, Maggie, Geoff, Jayant, Deirdre, Piper and everyone else who suggested podcasts.

Header illustration by Jane Ha.

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We're living in a golden age of audio. Whatever your interest, passion, or taste, there's a podcast out there that will cater to it, available free of charge. These podcasts don't just provide entertainment while commuting or walking the dog, they also provide fuel for creativity, by opening doors into unfamiliar cultures or scenarios. We asked IDEO designers to nominate the podcasts that they find most inspiring.

Alex was a self-described gaming addict in his college days, but hadn’t touched his console in years. He knew his old habit would be the strongest incentive for working out. At the same time, he recognized that a simple post-workout reward wasn't gonna cut it, not to mention the temptation to skip the workout altogether with a perfectly functioning Xbox so close at hand.

Time to wield his ninja hacking skills.

Alex adjusting duration and intensity on his new (addictive) weight-loss machine.

The result is Cykill, a simple tweak that connects your gaming console’s power source to an exercise bike. The only way to start the console is by riding the bike. Fail to pedal fast enough and Cykill will cut the power using a “kill switch”—a disaster for serious gamers—which not only erases game progress, but can also corrupt the console’s hard drive. “After a big scene in the game you will see the Cykill LED meter appear," he said. It gets dangerously close to power-off, which forces you to pedal like mad in order to stabilize it. "What a silly but effective invention this is!”

Alex on the Cykill, an exercise-bike-gaming-console that interrupts your game if you stop pedaling.

After using his invention for three months to impressive results, Alex was ready to share it with the world. He made the project open source and submitted it to Hackaday. “I never intended this to be shared online. But then I realized, there are millions of Americans who are challenged with excessive gaming and weight gain—many of them kids and teens." Is Cykill is the answer to obesity for game-obsessed kids of America? "I feel it is definitely worth a shot,” he said.

Learn more about how Alex made Cykill here, at his website Fuzzy Wobble, and on his project page at Hackaday.

The Cykill dashboard.

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When interaction designer Alex S. finally decided to get serious about exercise, he knew exactly what to do. He bought a cheap stationary bike on Amazon and dusted off his old Xbox.

1. Inferno, by Louis-Philippe Demers, Bill Vorn

How does it feel to have an exoskeleton move your arms and make you dance? Pretty weird. Inferno, one of the single most talked-about pieces at Ars, offered visitors the curious sensation of being remote-controlled by a machine.

2. RoBoHoN, by Tomotaka Takahashi with Sharp

Half robot, half smartphone, RoBoHoN runs, dances, talks, takes pictures and projects them. Plus, it’s cute. Like a mini butler. We came away asking: Will future smart devices be gadgety, or sleek and designy a la Apple?

3. Rhizome Animation, by Boris Labbé

A hypnotising story about life on earth, and a good reminder of the power of mixing handdrawn images with computer-generated visuals. Designer Boris Labbé’s short film Rhizome is worth a watch.

4. Radical Atoms Exhibition

If the MIT Media Lab has its way, we’ll control the physical world of atoms in the same way that we control the digital world of pixels. This exhibit hewed closest to the theme of the Ars festival: “Radical Atoms: the alchemists of our time,” including provocations around biology as a responsive, “second skin” interface; a physical shape display that can be manipulated from near or far; and wearable miniature robots that rove around your body. Take a trip down the rabbit hole.

5. ASSISI, by Thomas Schmickl, Professor of Zoology at University of Graz

Tiny robots, placed among a society of fish and of bees, enabled the two to communicate and influence the actions of the other. Begged the question: how might we use robots to design and evolve swarm behavior in natural ecosystems?

6. Artificial Skins and Bones, by Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin

We loved the variety of thinking from this group of students, who are exploring the design of artificial bodies. Ideas included everything from regaining physical ability through smart prosthetics; to enhancing an experience through haptic feedback; to the inevitable evolution toward augmentation, like color- and pattern-changing skin (above), inspired by the octopus.

7. Innovation and Creativity on a Very Large Scale, by Ivan Poupyrev, Google ATAP

Poupyrev, head of Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, argued that constantly introducing new gadgets does not scale. What does scale is creating technologies enabling industries that manufacture basic goods, like jeans, to transform themselves. For Project Jacquard, ATAP invented a new type of conductive thread that can be woven into clothing (like a Levi’s jean jacket—the project was a collaboration between the two companies) giving it an invisible interface. These kinds of mutations are unpredictable, Poupyrev said, and driven by serendipity, emphasising the role of the artist in technological research.

For more about Ars Electronica, or to watch all the talks and presentations mentioned, check out their website: http://www.aec.at/

Header image by Martin Hieslmair. All images sourced from the official Ars Electronica Flickr.

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We went to Ars Electronica, Linz's annual celebration of art and tech, and here’s what we saw: Exoskeletons. Dancing robots. Shape-shifting materials. Swarms of fish and bees. Skin. Just your average day in the surrealverse. Here are seven projects to watch:

I help organizations cut through complexity by shaping how they show up, through brand strategy, identity, and storytelling.

Working at the intersection of brand and business, I bring an editorial eye and a bias toward making—turning ideas into tangible experiences that people can understand, trust, and believe in.

My work spans government, healthcare, financial services, media, and consumer goods, from launching Gen Z-focused ventures to building innovation labs and reimagining legacy brands. I relish moments of ambiguity and enjoy translating across teams, perspectives, and priorities to move ideas forward.

I started my career in editorial and digital design, shaping cross-platform experiences and identity systems in publishing and agency environments. That foundation still shapes how I work today: I’m detail-oriented, collaborative, and overreliant on the Oxford comma. I hold a BFA in Visual Communication from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

For 25 years, I've asked the same question: Who does this design exclude—and what are we going to do about it?

My work spans human-centered strategy, inclusive design, and qualitative research, with clients ranging from Microsoft, Google, and Verizon to the National Science Foundation, and San Francisco Unified School District.

Before IDEO, I taught elementary school in East Palo Alto and spent a decade doing design work with social service organizations—where I learned firsthand what it costs people when systems are built without them in mind.

I am currently writing User Error, a nonfiction book about digital access and the design decisions behind it. I live in Oakland, California.

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My expertise spans brand, communication, and product design across tech, education, the arts, and social impact.

I believe great work demands both high-level vision and obsessive attention to detail, and only happens through collaboration.

I bring an inclusive, hands-on approach and a deep understanding of business, which enables me to consistently deliver excellence while always asking why.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at the brand firms Pentagram and VSA Partners. I began my career as a designer, leading teams at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Milwaukee Art Museum. I hold an MFA in graphic design from Maryland Institute College of Art and a BFA in communication design from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, and have taught at some of the best design schools in the US.

I am responsible for IDEO’s long-term success in China and working with clients to use design as a tool to enable growth. Specifically, I have helped Chinese companies design holistic brand solutions through the development of their products, communication, services, and innovation teams, and I have helped multinationals expand their presence and influence in China.

I advise global leaders on developing China-led innovation and capabilities.

In over 15 years in IDEO Shanghai, I have worked on projects that use design to elevate the quality of the experience of healthcare products and services, streamline processes that increase productivity, create spaces and programs that promote and enable inclusive communities, and build next generation mobility solutions that are planet-positive.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at Philips Electronics and the Electrolux Group in Italy, the Netherlands, and Singapore on a number of breakthrough commercial products. I am a member of the Young President Organization in Shanghai.

Most AI products today are built for work—a space with clear problems and established systems. One founder noticed a gap: personal life is messier, harder to systematize, and mostly left behind by the AI boom. So she built Cue, a personal AI that lives inside iMessage and group chats, to go where the other tools haven't.

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In this episode, Becca Carroll, IDEO's Chief Strategy Officer, talks with Sida Li, co-founder and CEO of Shared Context Lab, about staying anchored to a human need while the technology around her keeps changing shape, why she treats her business model with the same rigor she'd bring to a product, and what it feels like to build a company at this particular, disorienting moment in AI.

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The conversation also gets into how Sida makes design decisions: the language Cue uses to describe itself, the tradeoffs behind building inside iMessage instead of a new app, and a real story about a business idea that didn’t pan out.

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This is the second in a two-part series profiling founders from IDEO's Startups-in-Residence program. The first conversation is with Johannes Seemann, founder of Sooner, on designing GenAI for the emotional side of money.

Most personal financial tools are built to run the numbers and optimize towards a budget. While that works for some, most people experience money as a lived relationship that does not neatly fit into a spreadsheet. Johannes Seemann and Becca Carroll discuss why money is emotional before it is mathematical, and what a human-centered approach to building a generative AI financial product looks like in practice.

Mina Seetharaman talks with Scott Shigeoka, author of Seek and Head of Curiosity Cultivation at the Eames Institute, about what distinguishes genuinely curious leadership from performative curiosity, how power dynamics shape curiosity, and why practicing curiosity can restore energy rather than drain it.

Mina Seetharaman talks with David Epstein, author of Inside the Box and Range, about why total freedom often produces average work, how leaders can design useful limits on purpose, and what organizations such as General Magic and Pixar reveal about the relationship between boundaries and creativity.