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.

I had been asked to create a newspaper for kyu, the design collective of which IDEO is a member, and I was ready to perform.

‍

My desire to explore the world using rhythm and sound on one hand and ink and paper on the other started when I was young. I was very quiet as a child. Instead of playing with friends, I created my own playground in a sketchbook. I listened to stories on a cassette player as I drew.

My mom, a violinist who played in an orchestra, taught me how each sound communicates a different feeling. Together, the instruments create a pleasing harmony.

I chose to play the cello, as its sounds comforted me. When I felt sad, I could play and the sadness was transformed into something beautiful. When I felt alone, the cello's mid-tones communicating with and supporting the other instruments made me feel less isolated.

I went to high school in New Zealand and focused on photography, art, and music. Playing in orchestra, string quartet, chamber orchestra, and musical show orchestra required rigorous practice, and I discovered that it was only with disciplined repetition that the ear could learn to hear the subtle distinctions between an almost perfect note and an imperfect one, between good enough harmonizing and exquisite music. Constant practice not only created perfect harmony, it also trained the soul.

Like music, calligraphy embodies many feelings. That was my father’s gift to me. He guided my hand, drawing with me. At first, I stood in his shadow, but I gained confidence over time. The calligraphic technique I now use involves moving very fast, every stroke following right after the one before, never taking time to look back.

The companies that make up kyu share a belief that creative collaboration will yield new solutions. To visualize the collective, I drew the first dot directly with the brush and then started to draw circles. Dots and lines, the basis of musical notation, helped me orchestrate the story visually. Rough strokes conveyed complexity and sometimes chaos, while the diffusion of ink into paper illustrated the calm conclusion of a journey. When the magazine reached a crescendo, the dots began to jump around wildly. The combination of ink and water unified sense and sense, and the story of the newspaper came to its happy end.

Just as each calligraphic mark and each musical instrument is unique, so too is each company in the kyu collective. Independent, but also located within the same “circle.” Sometimes the music of a page is the message.

“Music is the ultimate teacher.” ― Wassily Kandinsky

The day I got the assignment, I ran to the art store and bought brushes, ink, and a grindstone. I set the tools on my desk, which became the stage. I was the conductor, interpreting the text like a musical score.

‍

The secret is in iOS 11 Live Photo Effects. To make your own, access this feature, take a live photo, then, in the photos app, swipe up to reveal the Live Photo Effects.

Easy, right? Yes and no.

Creating a live loop is easy, but creating a cinemagraph requires a bit more planning. The difference is in the framing—too much movement, and you’ll just get a live loop. Here are a few tips to ensure you nail the combination of still photo and limited motion:

1. Find the shot: To create a beautiful cinemagraph, find a shot where most of the image will be still, and only a piece is in motion—perhaps a tree blowing in the wind, or raindrops on a puddle. If there’s too much movement in the frame, the shot will feel chaotic.
2. Plan it out: While it’s possible to pull off a clean loop without a tripod, don’t just point and shoot. I like to turn on the grid in my photo settings—these lines help me see if I’m holding still or wobbling slightly (I always use the grid to help create a level horizon or position subjects, anyway). Try to lock your body by leaning on something, or even by putting the camera on a table to keep it as still as possible.
3. Stage it: Don’t leave it to chance! When you can, control the shot. The pool shot below took a few tries, and it really helps that there were no other people wandering through.

Sharing the live loop

So you’ve perfected your technique and have a gorgeous loop to share! The problem is, iOS doesn’t exactly make it easy.

If you try to share natively to Instagram, it’ll tell you the loop needs to be three seconds or longer. And iOS doesn’t offer a lot of options to help—there’s no easy way to export your Live Loop into a format that’s shareable for Instagram. I found this out the hard way while I was traveling in the Philippines, and since I didn’t have my computer with me, I had to figure out a way to solve for this using only my phone.

One of my goals was to use only free apps—buying a bunch of apps I wasn’t sure were going to work didn’t sound very fun. After much Googling, trial, and error I created the workflow below. The first time through might take you a few minutes, but now that I’ve done it a few times, I can go from live loop to Instagram in less than two minutes.

Get the apps

First, download these three free apps:

1. Lively: Exports your Live Loop as a video
2. Splice: A free video editor that lets you extend the length of the loop to meet Instagram’s minimum requirements
3. Video Crop: Removes any letterboxing (black bars) in the video export

1. Lively

Start by using Lively to open the loop you want to export. In the top of the export panel select “Movie” and then tap “Export”, then save the movie.

2. Splice

In Splice, tap the + icon on the top right to create a new project and select the video you exported from Lively. Click “Add (1)” on the top right to add it to your project.

On the Add Audio screen, tap “Skip” on the top right.

Name it however you like, and use these settings:

• Format: Select Landscape for wide photos or Portrait for tall ones
• Default transition: set to “None”
• Outro: set to “Off”

Now you should be in the editing screen; all you have to do is tap your video and select “Duplicate.” Do this three or four times until your video duration is at least 0:05 or longer.

Lastly, tap the “Export” button on the top right and select “Save.” I always pick 1080p HD for the best quality.

3. Video Crop

One last step: Remove the letterbox (those pesky black bars) on the side of the exported video. Open “Video Crop,” tap the big red button, select your video, and tap the check mark on the top right.

Now use the crop tool to trim off the black bars, then tap the export button on the top right. When it’s done processing, tap “Save.”

Very Instagrammable

Cinemagraph loops look amazing on Instagram or Facebook, and they give you a unique way to share your experiences (Let’s be real—we’ve all seen enough Boomerangs.)

It takes a few steps, but once you get the hang of it, the process is quick and easy. And when your friends ask how you did it, you can point them this way.

‍

I’ve always loved cinemagraphs—those endless, hypnotizing loops where part of the frame is still while some areas are gently in motion. When I discovered that I could create these loops natively with iOS 11 (iPhone 6S or newer), I couldn’t wait to try it out.

Through the Swedish Energy Agency and its partners, the nation is focusing on reducing pollution from the transportation sector. It plans to reduce (but not entirely eliminate) the need for private car ownership by improving alternative travel options for people in everyday life.

In more wonky language, the focus is on sustainable mobility as a service, an approach that brings all means of travel together. It combines options from different transport providers into a single mobile service, removing the hassle of planning and one-off payments. It’s an environmentally sound alternative to owning a car, and an approach to mobility now being propelled by urbanization, economic shifts, artificial intelligence—and the social and economic impacts of climate change.

Through its initiative, A Challenge from Sweden, the Swedish Energy Agency invited IDEO to join the effort. Here are three lessons we learned along the way through working alongside our Swedish counterparts.

1. Get outside

Swedes live for fresh air and natural landscapes. Even the most committed Swedish city slickers retreat to a cabin at the weekend, or dream of an escape to the countryside. The natural world is imagined and felt as replenishment—as a valuable resource to be respected and enjoyed.

For our design team, it was a reminder to take our research far beyond Stockholm or Gothenburg, especially as we considered designing for a nation of travelers. We took long train rides to meet people in smaller towns, and walked as much as we could. It felt good, and it was necessary.

Going outside also means seeking out inspiration from beyond your own context. We were inspired by examples of civic and societal change from around the world, and brought them into the project, almost as if we’d discovered precious acorns on the forest floor.

2. Engage tradition

Cultural traditions and norms might seem strange or twee to outside eyes. But they almost always hint at a deep societal agreement. We discovered that in Sweden, for sure. Fika is not merely a coffee break during the day: it’s an invitation to pause, to reflect, to reconnect with one’s thoughts or emotions, and to restart.

We introduced fika in our project space, and observed it when we were with the team from Sweden. It added a note of calm and confidence to our work and to our individual energies, even as the work accelerated in intensity towards the end.

Similarly, we drew on Nordic storytelling tradition to share the story of our research in Sweden. Instead of using dry descriptions to describe the different ways Swedes might be triggered to make new transportation choices, we told a three-dimensional fable that told the story of a mythic waterfall, and the different paths that four people took to find it and use it.

The fable allowed us to invite our collaborators into a instinctive understanding of what we’d all learned together, as well as a logical one. The story resonated, it brought joy into an otherwise serious, complex topic, and it was easy to repeat.

3. Be brave

The scale of Sweden’s ambition is remarkable, but—in Sweden itself—commonplace.

Swedes recognize that their country is small, their population tiny, and their contributions to global climate change negligible. But they also understand that, by leading with bravery, they have earned outsized influence in the world. Other countries look to them as an example of how to set goals and make change in service of healthy, sustainable growth.

Sweden has set a goal of achieving a fossil neutral transportation sector before 2030. That’s a big ambition, and an exciting one.

Through a global innovation challenge, Sweden is now inviting engaged political leaders and some of the world’s most capable companies to help make sustainable mobility as a service a reality.

In other words, Sweden is going places fast.

Find out more about Mission Innovation 3 and A Challenge from Sweden.

Through IKEA, Sweden has already transformed the world of contemporary furniture and home furnishing. Now Sweden is taking on an arguably even more ambitious goal: leading the world in tackling some of the thorniest causes of global climate change.

Here are three juicy ones to get started thinking more deeply about blockchain, the unique experiences the technology enables, and how it could be integrated into our everyday lives.

1. Designing for ownership

The beauty of cryptocurrency is that it’s possible for you, and only you, to have access to your crypto wallet and assets. That means you get to have true ownership; your “account” information isn’t stored by a bank or central authority that can use or take away your assets at will (think of governments seizing funds, for example). Instead, the data is stored in a universal ledger across a distributed network that can independently verify who owns what—so it’s much more transparent than most of today’s banking systems.

Of course, that power also comes with great responsibility. There is no password or account recovery if you lose or reveal your private key (sometimes expressed in the form of a 24-word phrase), which is used to “unlock” your wallet. Giving that away is like dropping cash on the street—you likely won’t get it back.

Challenge: Design secure and user-friendly ways to store private keys.

A few questions to get you started:

• How might we design better ways to securely store private keys that balance security (keys cannot be easily copied or stolen) and ease of use?
• What are some digital and physical features for secure storage that we could utilize?
• How might we design ways to securely transfer ownership of private keys in case of loss or death?

Some inspiration:

• Fractional Custody: What are some ways you could divide up and distribute private keys among five of your most trusted friends and family members?
• Book of Codes: Inspired by Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes, what if custom die-cut cards could reveal your passphrase when placed over the right book?
• Multiple Points of Verification: Could you have a mobile app that verifies your identity through multiple social networks before revealing the passphrase?

2. Designing transparency in network transactions

Every time you transact in Ethereum, a platform for blockchain applications, you have to set your gas price—the amount you are willing to pay for the computation needed for your transaction be confirmed. An easy analog is paying more for expedited shipping to get your package mailed there sooner.

Those prices and speeds are not determined by any one party (like FedEx, for instance), but by how busy the network is, how many other transactions are waiting to be confirmed, and what gas price those other transactions are using. But information about current network state is rarely communicated to the user—adding frustration and confusion when setting your best guess at gas price. Too low? Your transaction might not go through for a long time (or ever). Set it too high, and you risk paying more than you need to.

Remember the early days of eBay, before they included shipping rates in transactions? You had to wait for a day or so until the seller got back to you with the actual shipping costs. Sometimes it was what you’d expected, sometimes it bit you in the butt.

Challenge: Design better ways to help users make a decision about transaction costs, or find ways to abstract it away all together.

A few questions to get you started:

• How might we make transaction costs and prices more transparent to the user?
• How might we reveal high-level and useful data on network status?
• How might we better automate gas estimates to remove friction from decision-making?

Some inspiration:

• The Slider: Could the user first select their desired transaction speed to reveal its implied cost?
• The Wallet Just for Gas: Could there be a separate wallet just for transaction costs, which gets topped off at regular intervals?
• The Toggle: Could you offer the user be a simple choice—speed vs. value?

3. Designing for readability

Crypto wallet addresses currently look something like this: 0x04De111196aCE9764b6eCAcC4f849b6b59193443—a string of 40 characters, which serve the function of being cryptographically unique (i.e. impossible to guess). While there are experiments like ENS, a human-readable domain system for blockchain addresses, they aren’t widely adopted yet. Sending a crypto transaction today means checking and double-checking 40 characters that look like gobble-de-gook. And you need to get it right the first time, since there are no refunds or rollbacks for crypto transactions.

That’s like having to type in the bank account number of every merchant or person you’d like to transact with, every single time. If it’s off by one digit—cue instant regret.

The challenge: Design ways to display blockchain addresses in a more readable or recognizable format.

A few questions to get you started:

• How might we use algorithmically-generated images or symbols to create visual recognizability?
• Are there industry standards (like checksums) that could help reduce errors in address entry?

Some inspiration:

• Cryptographic Visual Tags: How might we use unique color codes or symbols to tag address typologies or to verify addresses?
• 4-Digit Verifications: What are some industry standards that financial institutions use that could be relevant for these addresses? One such example is typing in the last 4 digits of a credit card number to verify ownership.
• Whitelist of Verified Addresses: Are there ways to maintain a registry of trusted addresses without relying on a central authority?

These are just three challenges (ahem, opportunities) that blockchain offers designers—there are (and will continue to be) many more. Have an idea? We’d love to hear it! Tweet your thoughts to @ideocolab.

Interested in collaborating with us on a future project, or got another blockchain-based design challenge you want to talk about? Reach out to IDEO CoLab, IDEO’s collaborative platform for emerging technologies, here or on Twitter!

‍

Despite all the media hype about the rise and fall of cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology is still in its infancy, meaning it’s an ideal time for designers to step in and help build new systems. There’s no shortage of challenges to address.

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.