Looking to understand the role of instant noodles in middle-class Chinese life, the IDEO team conducted in-home research with consumers across a range of life stages and levels of attachment to noodle culture and convenience foods. The first finding was reassuring: Everyone kept instant noodles at home. The category still had a place in middle-class kitchens. But beneath that was a more complicated, emotional story—and an unmet need for convenience and quality to coexist in a single product.

The team discovered that instant noodles are more than just a quick, on-the-go meal; they are a nostalgic comfort food that evokes fond memories. But since their heyday, their role in daily life has evolved. Once a complete meal in itself, instant noodles now often function as a versatile flavor base or culinary accent in other dishes. Because they don’t align with the healthier, higher-quality, and more novel food choices that middle-class consumers aspire to, noodle shops, delivery noodles, or fresh-cooked instant options often win out. Yet, even these alternatives come with trade-offs. Delivered noodles lose texture during transport. Sit-down noodle shops preserve quality but offer limited flavors.  Cooking from scratch meets the bar for both texture and flavor, but requires a significant time investment. As one young mother said, “If I could get the texture of fresh-cooked noodles without turning on the stove, I’d buy that instant noodle for sure.”

The research inspired the creation of a new category, which the team termed “fresh-brewed noodles.” More than just a noodle or broth upgrade, Master Kong’s fresh-brewed noodles would offer the speed of instant noodles with the quality of freshly cooked options, plus flavors not found in traditional noodle shops. The strategic positioning was clear. Executing it by making fresh-brewed noodles mass-producible, affordable, and eventually profitable presented a category-innovation challenge. To get there, IDEO designed a series of dual-track co-creation workshops with the Master Kong team and consumers.

One track focused on prototyping the core product experience: noodles, broth, and toppings. IDEO and Master Kong’s R&D team began by studying the traditional craft of Chinese noodle-making, starting in Shanxi, a region renowned for its noodles. Through successive rounds of prototyping and consumer tasting, the team identified a critical insight: for “fresh-brewed noodles” to be convincing, the innovation had to be centered on the noodles themselves.

Texture alone was not enough. Consumers needed to see a meaningful difference before they tasted the product. IDEO translated this insight into a distinctive noodle profile: irregular, dimensional shapes designed to remain springy, hold sauce and broth, and mimic the resilience of freshly cooked noodles using only hot water. Because this visible shape represented the product’s core value proposition, it became a hero feature on the packaging. The graphic design made a bold visual statement about the noodle form, turning a technical R&D breakthrough into an immediately legible consumer promise: these are not ordinary instant noodles.

A parallel track explored the broader commercial experience: trend-forward and reimagined classic flavor profiles, light yet deeply satisfying broths, carefully selected toppings, and packaging that signals a new level of quality on store shelves. One key insight was that utensils carry meaning. Conventional instant noodles are often associated with disposable plastic forks, while higher-quality noodles are eaten with chopsticks. IDEO translated this cultural cue into the design of the bowl’s lid.

Instead of treating utensils as an afterthought, the team designed a solid, rounded, heat-retaining lid that embeds a pair of small wooden chopsticks. The gesture creates a small ritual of anticipation and reframes the product—not just a convenient instant meal, but a more considered noodle experience. Once opened, the product fulfills that promise with satisfyingly bouncy noodles, a rich liquid broth pouch that replaces the traditional oil-and-powder packet, and a vegetable packet reformulated with more premium whole ingredients.

The first batch of “Te Bie Te” Fresh-Brewed Noodles—Chinese wordplay that emphasizes “special”—launched in August 2025 with three trendy and tried-and-true flavors. Within just three days, sales exceeded 100,000 bowls. Within a week, “Te Bie Te” topped the instant noodle category sales ranking on Douyin, China’s domestic counterpart to TikTok. The outcome was bigger than a product launch—it served as proof that a mature, declining category could be fundamentally reinvented to meet consumers’ real needs. For Master Kong, the project became a North Star and a model for internal category innovation in beverages, ready-to-eat foods, and beyond.

Once a popular, affordable staple, the instant noodle category in China has been declining rapidly due to shifting demographics, rising food delivery options, and increasing customer demand for healthier, more nutritious meals.

‍

According to the World Instant Noodles Association, between 2020 and 2023, China’s instant noodle consumption fell by 4 billion packs.

100,000+

“Te Bie Te” bowls sold in the first 3 days on the market

#1

on Douyin’s instant noodle category ranking within one week of launch

Taylor’s legacy began in 1969 with the founding of Taylor’s College and soon expanded to include Taylor’s University, one of Southeast Asia’s top private universities, as well as many other institutions that serve 35,000 students per year. The family-owned group also operates Taylor’s International Schools, Garden International School, and Nexus International School for students ages 4 to 18. In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital city, annual tuition at premium private schools like these ranges from about $10,000 to $25,000 USD. Taylor’s wanted to do something different: provide the same level of academic rigor and immersive learning experiences at one-third the cost.

IDEO began by speaking with over three dozen students, parents, teachers, and experts across the capital to understand what was working, what wasn’t, and what was missing from such moderately priced international schools.

A few themes quickly emerged. Families, students, and teachers were worried about the stability of these new private schools, which tended to have higher-than-normal teacher turnover rates and were plagued by financial instability, negatively impacting talent attraction and retention, as well as student learning. Parents appreciated that the schools offered holistic learning experiences, such as field trips to rural areas, including jungles, but wished they were more consistently part of the curriculum. And now, the looming challenge of AI—how to use it, how to teach it, and how to teach with it—was in the background, a persistent cause for concern. The big unmet need? Reassurance that Taylor’s was thinking long-term and systematically about developing the skills, knowledge, and mindsets that would prepare students for an ever-changing world. Parents wanted a school that measured growth in academic, social, and character terms over generations, not just school semesters.

With these insights in hand, IDEO began developing a design Playbook for Taylor’s new brand—Lexel International Schools. A combination of “lexicon” and “excellence,” Lexel’s mission is “building what lasts, learning for life.”

The schools are centered around three key differentiators: 

• Always Ahead: Lexel schools commit to staying current with the topics and subject matter they teach, as well as the tools they provide to students, parents, and teachers.s.  
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• Learning That Builds for Life: The schools ensure programmatic, systemic, and consistent learning experiences from Pre-K to Year 11. Interested students can even continue their post-secondary journey in partnership with Taylor’s University and other higher education institutions within the Taylor’s ecosystem.
  
  
• Educators for the Long Run: These schools commit to ongoing investments in professional growth opportunities for teachers and stable learning environments for students.

Four Lexel Literacies—AI, Digital, Financial, and Nutrition—integrated into the Cambridge Curriculum bring the school’s vision and mission to life.

By systematically integrating AI literacy into its spiral education framework, in particular, an approach where major topics are revisited multiple times through a curriculum to build fluency over time, Lexel ensures parents that the school is thinking a decade ahead from Day One, setting the school apart. In addition to enhancing AI fluency, Lexel offers unique end-of-term experiences called Jungles & Junctions.

Combining three important strands of learning—community engagement, nature-based personal and interpersonal development, and career and university exploration—Jungles & Junctions leverages Taylor’s extended educational network and Lexel’s strategic founding campus within the Gamuda Gardens development in Selangor. Surrounded by tropical rainforests, the township’s residential neighborhoods, theme park, and various sports facilities, including an Olympic-length swimming pool, are transformed into an extended Lexel campus, with a GenAI-driven planner to help teachers streamline the organization of class outings. “The Township is Your Campus” became the tagline for this approach.

In September 2025, just months after IDEO’s collaboration ended, Taylor’s began classes at its first Lexel International School. By mid-year, the new school had achieved 115% of its year-one student enrollment target, with significant inbound demand for Year 2 already demonstrating the school’s market resonance.

The modern campus features spacious classrooms, science and technology labs, a library, a multipurpose hall, and a canteen. Annual tuition ranges from about $2,800 USD for pre-K students to about $6,100 USD for secondary students.

Most importantly, by combining Taylor’s deep academic expertise, Gamuda Land’s development prowess, and IDEO’s innovative design Playbook, Lexel brings quality, affordable international education closer to home for Malaysian families. According to one parent, “My daughter looks forward to going to school every day … and has a lot of opportunities to express herself. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give [Lexel] an 11.” Based on the IDEO Playbook, a second flagship campus in the Southern Klang Valley, which is scheduled to open in September 2026, has already exceeded its year-one target enrollment expectations, with plans to continue extending the Lexel network to other parts of Malaysia and the wider Southeast Asian region in the near future.

Malaysia’s private international school sector has grown significantly as parents seek quality English-language education. However, high tuition fees and limited access to reputable schools are continual challenges for those in the emerging middle class.

115%

of Lexel’s student enrollment target reached during the launch year of its first campus
‍

Year 1 enrollment target exceeded

at Lexel's second campus several months ahead of classes commencing

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The American news industry has long been a competitive and saturated market. This has only intensified with the emergence of social media outlets and AI-generated news. Even so, SAN’s rigorously unbiased, fact-based reporting style and rich video storytelling had enabled the ambitious startup to rise above the media fray in just three short years.

With a strong foundation to build on, IDEO sought to further differentiate SAN’s cutting-edge news product and build deeper engagement with a wider audience through a new user experience.

‍Collaborating closely, IDEO and SAN began by delving deeply into media consumption habits. They met with early SAN superfans, news consumers who spent hours a day absorbing content from traditional outlets like Fox and USA Today, and those who looked to their Ring doorbell app or Reddit for news. The takeaways? People were tired of clickbait and clunky interfaces. They sought clear, factual news that was easily accessible, with additional context to help them interpret events and understand their significance. They craved more than one perspective on important topics, so stories felt balanced rather than polarized. They also valued having control over how they consumed news, so making it easy to switch between text, video, and audio formats was crucial.

Together, IDEO and SAN created features across SAN’s website and app that put facts, trust, and transparency at the core of the product experience. Fact Cards distill key data points into clear, shareable units, while the Sources feature allows readers to trace information directly back to its original source. To make complex stories easier to grasp, Big Picture insights drill down into why events matter, surfacing underlying themes, historical parallels, differences in reporting, and common ground. The Why This Story Matters section provides readers with clear framing and sets the story within a broader context, while the Timeline illustrates how events unfold over days, months, or even years. An antidote to news polarization, See All Sides presents left, right, and center narratives for key topics side-by-side, and Media Landscape visualizations reveal how coverage varies across outlets. Finally, to ensure SAN fits seamlessly into readers’ daily lives, the redesigned Today Page is organized into three highly scannable sections: Latest News, Top Stories, and SAN Originals. The combined features create a balanced, clear, and non-polarizing news experience, making it easy for readers to delve deeper into the sources of their news.

SAN now delivers a news experience as modern, dynamic, and trustworthy as its journalism. A month after its debut, the SAN app’s page views increased 1,170 percent year over year compared to June 2024, while active users rose 700 percent. Readers also give the updated mobile experience a 4.8 rating on the Apple App Store. “Our team is delivering reporting that’s both deeply factual and accessible,” said Derek Mead, SAN’s Chief Content Officer. “This redesign is pivotal to the direction journalism needs to take and the leadership role Straight Arrow News is taking on as we help guide the news industry into a brighter future.”

SAN built a loyal readership and gained recognition for its unbiased reporting. To expand and stand out from legacy media, SAN  wanted a redesigned user experience that reflected its commitment to fact-based journalism.

1,170%

increase in app page views YoY 

700%

increase in active users

4.8 rating

on the Apple App Store

Sanofi was the first company to supply the polio vaccine worldwide. Because of the global fight against the disease, endemic wild poliovirus transmission is now limited to just two countries. However, attitudes toward vaccines and immunizations have shifted significantly. To ensure a smooth launch of Beyfortus in a time of increased vaccine hesitancy, Sanofi asked IDEO to conduct research across four important and very different healthcare markets: Germany, Spain, China, and the US.

IDEO worked with parents, caregivers, healthcare professionals, and healthcare administrators to identify potential barriers to vaccine adoption and understand the emotional needs of all stakeholders involved in the immunization process. Navigating cultural differences and diverse healthcare environments, the team uncovered a set of insights.

For healthcare professionals, the team discovered there was no one-size-fits-all approach to immunization training across Sanofi’s 20-plus global markets. While consistency of key information was important, trainings needed to be flexible and customizable. This way, regardless of whether the vaccine was administered by midwives, OB-GYNs, nurses, or doctors, they could  confidently discuss the pros and cons across cultural contexts and administer the drug correctly.
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For new parents, receiving information about a new immunization immediately after giving birth could be too stressful. But simply leaving pamphlets about Beyfortus in waiting rooms didn't address their real concerns, either. Caregivers needed to engage in conversations earlier in their pregnancies and continue them after leaving the hospital, when they might have additional questions.

IDEO translated these research insights into a highly accessible global communication toolkit that uses simple, straightforward language, metaphors, and illustrations to support informed conversations between healthcare providers and parents before, during, and after a child is born. IDEO then conducted a series of market-fit co-design workshops with representatives of Sanofi’s global immunization business to iterate on the print and digital tools, make them more resonant with regional customers, and ensure compliance with local regulations. IDEO handed the toolkits over for development to support the launch of Beyfortus in January 2024, just in time for RSV season.

Beyfortus saw enormous demand in its first year, demonstrating strong efficacy in real-world applications and achieving blockbuster status as a $1.8 billion therapy. Sanofi’s global launch team credits the patient-centric toolkit with increased requests for communication materials from its regional markets as well as from healthcare and government organizations that have typically been hard to reach, key goals of its global-local launch strategy.

Since its development, Beyfortus has received swift regulatory approval from the US, EU, China, and Japan, with patient demand causing Sanofi to triple its worldwide manufacturing capacity to meet the needs of the 2024-25 RSV season. Ahead of the larger global distribution of Beyfortus, IDEO and Sanofi partnered with equity expert consultants, Fearless Futures, to conduct a DEI review and worked with doctors and nurses who participated in the initial drug launch to make the materials even more accessible, relevant, and successful for 2025 and beyond. To date, six million babies—and counting—have been immunized with Beyfortus.

Worldwide, childhood vaccination hesitancy among parents fluctuates between 25-45%, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), a trend it considers one of the biggest global threats to public health.

85.9%

‍reduction in hospitalizations for infants who received Beyfortus compared to those who did not (2023–24 RSV season)

$1.8B

in first-year sales of Beyfortus

‍

He outlined his thesis, built over many years of creative problem solving: Almost any creative endeavor can produce an output–a digital experience, a new brand, a physical product, a reimagined service–but the quality of that output is wholly dependent on how we frame and examine the problem it’s meant to solve. For years, his thinking has stuck with me: Obsess over the question. Questions are a tool to guide our thinking, and, to address the biggest, gnarliest challenges facing society today, we need to think in radically new ways.

Questions can serve two purposes: They can open our apertures, allowing us to uncover new approaches to familiar problems, or they can focus our efforts by providing clarifying constraints on formidable challenges. In both cases, a well-crafted question allows you to examine a problem in new ways, stress-testing potential solutions to ensure innovation is successful and doesn’t fall into a trap.

Across our interactions at IDEO–in our health portfolio and beyond–we encounter organizations looking for answers to the most critical challenges that they are facing, and, in response, many groups purporting to have the answers. AI products that will “unleash the power of your workforce,” digital solutions that will “fix your patient experience,” or elixirs that will magically cure every conceivable ailment hindering your organization today. But, when you are holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when organizations start with solutions, the impact of their innovation efforts will be at best limited, and at worst, will completely miss the mark, squandering opportunities and investments.

So, when faced with a daunting challenge, jumping to solutions with “guaranteed” results can look attractive, but doing so may very well limit you to what is possible right now. The questions we ask are a starting point to allow us to envision beyond today, unlocking new solutions to the toughest problems.

Recent history in digital health serves as an excellent example of solutions looking for problems. While “digital health” is now an established term, we are yet to realize the value of a decade’s worth of the progress it promised. To date, even the most future-facing digital health initiatives have been focused on gathering data to drive efficiency or improving costs by outsourcing to digitized solutions. But the true value of digitized health will come when we find the meaning in the data that we gather. It will fuel more integrated health services that fit it into the ways we experience our own health and improve both quality of life and outcomes. Technology for technology's sake will not advance this cause, but digging into genuine problems and asking how our emerging technologies can enable us to innovate in genuine, human-centric ways will. 

By reframing the problem in the first place, we may land on better solutions. How might we enable people to live healthier lives before they find themselves requiring clinical care? How might we enable better collaboration across sectors to transform into the health systems we need for the next generation? How do we leverage human expertise alongside AI? Individual technologies will not be the answer; they will be enablers within a system redesigned with these considerations in mind. 

The opportunity in healthcare is keenly illustrated by developments in the financial sector. Startups and challenger brands have used human-centered innovation to disrupt incumbents in a highly-regulated space by transforming the customer experience. The resulting reset of market share has forced the established financial institutions to elevate their own customer experience to keep pace with these new entrants, accelerating innovation and investment. With the global healthcare industry attracting spending comparable to the annual GDP of a small country, it is only a matter of time before disruptors come along and rip up the existing healthcare rule book. Because if large incumbent brands don’t innovate, someone else will. 

In healthcare and beyond, many organizations acknowledge that AI will be a significant part of their future success, but—to change the question again: What do humans in the experience deem desirable? How should the experience be elevated? What value might new, emerging technologies unlock? 

The answers may lie outside of traditional healthcare itself. The industry doesn't exist in isolation. It’s heavily influenced by politics, policy, geography, and climate, and it is deeply integrated with other parts of our daily lives.  Today, the health of people, communities, and our planet are inextricably linked. To understand just how interconnected they are, consider the following facts: 80 percent of health outcomes globally are driven by non-clinical factors–the environmental conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live and age. And at the same time, healthcare is responsible for 10 percent of global material extractions and 4.4 percent of emissions, contributing significantly to the very environmental issues that are increasingly impacting human health.

With both the healthcare system and the planet under such extreme pressure, small changes are not the basis of a winning strategy. If we are able to frame the right questions, we might be able to shift the preconceived constraints that exist today and create better systems, experiences, and solutions that address real human needs for the future. 

If you take a hard look around healthcare, you’ll see many solutions, but few that address those big, gnarly challenges. And yet, the need has never been greater. Organizations of every size should carefully examine the questions guiding their efforts: Is this solution solving a genuine problem? Are we placing people at the heart of our solutions? Is the innovation effort set up for success? 

If the answer is no, then the first step is to go back to the problem and ask: Do you have a great question that your innovation efforts are trying to answer? Does it represent the humans in the experience? Is it oriented around an outcome? Does it acknowledge the wider context? And is it broad enough to represent a number of possible futures, while being constrained enough to make meaningful progress?

With ever-increasing societal and commercial pressures, now is the moment to radically rethink our broken health systems. It’s a huge job, but there’s an easy place to start: Ask the right questions. 

Exploring how to innovate in new ways? We would love to chat.

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One of the most impactful lectures I had in my early years of design training was from a professor who sought to reframe the purpose of design.

It will shift from something physical in our pockets to a seamless layer embedded in every service. Financial tools will be hyper-personalized and smarter thanks to AI. This will benefit everyone, but it will have the most positive impact on those in the last mile: low-income people in emerging markets, women, and rural communities. Businesses will benefit, too. Tapping into billions of underserved customers will unlock growth. All these factors make a more inclusive future of money not just long overdue, but also inevitable.

For the past five years, IDEO has been exploring what’s possible for the future of finance with Last Mile Money, an innovation program that accelerates new financial products for those who traditionally have been excluded from financial systems. We’ve worked with partners to launch more than 100 pilots, prototypes, and products to connect them e with better financial options. Now, we’re sharing the lessons we’ve learned in advancing inclusion, gender equity, and the digital economy. And we’re inviting the global finance community to learn, replicate, and scale our innovations—or to come up with even better ones. 

A big part of this work has been looking closely at the signals that tell us what the future of finance will look like. And over the next 10 years, we predict three seismic changes in the world of money:  

#1. Women will be at the center of finance.

Digital products will be built for women, not adapted to include them. 

Women are underserved by the world of money. One-third of women in emerging markets do not have a formal bank account, excluding them from high-quality options to save, grow a business, or plan for their family’s future. Meanwhile, businesses are missing out on billions of customers, and many are realizing they must change: They need to center women’s financial needs, not only to be more inclusive, but for their own growth.

In Pakistan, the global consumer-goods company Unilever launched Guddi Bajis, a program for rural women to earn a living by delivering household goods to other women’s homes. IDEO worked with Unilever and the startup Finja to design a digital experience for these women that was culturally-sensitive and optimized for first-time internet users. These digital Guddi Bajis were able to grow their businesses by leveraging smartphones, digital payments, and credit—often for the first time. And to great sucess: They reported up to a five-fold increase in income after accessing digital credit. Not only were these female agents able to earn and increase their own livelihood, the program  also benefitted their customers—women in their communities.

Future #2. The last mile will be no mile at all.

The last mile will not be defined by location, but by network access. 

Historically, geography has been a big determinant of who can participate in financial systems. People living in very rural areas in less developed countries were simply left out. But as internet connectivity spreads into more corners of the globe and the digital economy enables work from anywhere, the line between urban and rural will no longer decide prosperity. Instead, it will be determined by how active and connected we are in digital networks. And what may seem like unexpected partnerships today will set the norm for how businesses reach the new last mile of people tomorrow. 

Our team saw this in action in Indonesia where global food company Cargill had a problem sending payments to cocoa farmers in rural areas. So, we brought in Grab, a major tech company behind an e-commerce app where farmers could sign up as agents to facilitate payments on its platform. Now, payments that used to take seven months get to farmers in only 10 days, boosting satisfaction with Cargill. And rural agents actually performed 111 percent better than agents in small cities, exceeding a target for gross merchandise value, according to Grab data. Better yet, the “star agents” turned out to be women who had strong ties in their rural communities and were active in social-commerce networks. This effort was so promising that Grab is scaling the model among women merchants and drivers elsewhere in Indonesia, bringing digital livelihoods to more underserved people regardless of geography. 

Future #3. Financial services will be invisible.

Our everyday lives will be enabled by a seamless layer of AI-driven, embedded finance.

As our lives become ever more digital, finance is becoming just another layer of daily life, seamless and embedded. We’ve seen this with apps offering personalized financial guidance, automated investing, and credit when we’re online shopping. Now it’s happening for the rest of the world. 

In Tanzania, when merchants run short of funds, they can get instant credit so their sales aren’t interrupted. This is thanks to Kuunda Digital’s automatic service that pre-qualifies merchants and makes accepting credit as easy as responding to a text message. Even small amounts of capital delivered just-in-time have helped merchants earn more revenue and lifted transaction volumes for banks and telcos. With support from IDEO, Kuunda brought this embedded-finance solution to new markets. Globally, Kuunda has scaled to 6.1 million active users and has distributed $1 billion in loans.

Already, we’re seeing signs that these shifts are beginning to take place. But more importantly, folks at the last mile are really beginning to feel them in their own lives and communities. A decade from now, these seismic changes won’t even feel new. And we invite everyone in this space, from startups to behemoths of finance, to help build the tools and pathways to make that happen. 

Learn more at Financial Futures, where we explore what’s possible for the future of the last mile.

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‍

In the year 2034, money will work dramatically differently than it does today.

As I swam, in a meditative cycle of inhale and exhale, I was deep in my brain, totally engaged, thinking about the project I’m working on as part of my fellowship with the Aspen Institute. That’s when I realized just how well-designed this fellowship is. And I should know. I design fellowships for a living.

The First Movers Fellowship is part of the Business and Society Program at the Aspen Institute, a non-profit organization committed to realizing a free, just, and equitable society. Since its founding, the Institute has worked to drive change through dialogue, leadership, and action in communities at home and around the world. 

Back in 2009, Nancy McGaw, author of Making Work Matter, designed the fellowship with her team and some help from IDEO. The idea behind the program is to advance “social intrapreneurship” within organizations; aka to drive social impact goals alongside business goals. Because, as McGaw put it in her book, “There is increased urgency in companies to adapt and innovate … with attention to the footprint they are leaving on communities and the planet.”

Now, a decade after I first heard about it, and four years since I first designed a fellowship, I’m a First Movers Fellow. My project is about centering and amplifying the practice of inclusive/responsible design at IDEO. I am so lucky to get the chance to be a part of this amazing cohort, and also part of IDEO’s history with the program. (In 2009, Jocelyn Wyatt, former CEO of IDEO.org, was a fellow working on a project that soon became IDEO.org itself. A few years ago, Michelle Lee partnered with toymakers and external organizations to help drive digital experiences that can help people thrive. Pretty big shoes to fill.)

Already, I am learning so much from the other fellows and the curriculum. But as a fellowship designer, I am also relishing the details and intentional design that creates truly transformative experiences. Here are some core principles that can make a fellowship genuinely great. 

‍Seeing eye to eye (literally)

It’s important to design fellowships to ease folks into new spaces—and meeting new people—with care.  Groups bond more quickly when facilitators break up mass conversation into smaller groups and randomize them, to get everyone to talk to everyone. When I met with the Aspen Fellows for the first time, we sat around a circular table, where everyone could look at each other. (There is even a circular building on the Aspen Institute campus specifically for this purpose.) It made a surprisingly big impact. And there were no fancy titles on our nametags—just our first and last names. (And pronouns. Which may have been on my behalf, and I really appreciated it.) 

At a retreat I helped design for the Earthshot Prize, Prince William’s environmental award, my team focused a lot of our time together on helping our fellows bond. We created peer groups, paired fellows up to go on walks with discussion prompts—we even had them make chocolate together. At dinner in Aspen, they scrambled our name tags every night, and gave us new conversation prompts to facilitate table-wide sharing. One night, they asked, “What’s one thing that your younger self would be proud of?” Which, at my table, had us talking about everything from chicken nuggets to the origins of our names—and yes, some of us cried. 

No tech at the table. Ever.

In the business world, we’re so used to using technology to be in multiple places at once. But how well do we show up in either place when we do that? On the first day in Aspen, they told us, “When you’re here, you’re here, and if you have to take a call or text someone, leave the room. The table is a sacred place for presence and connection.”

Draconian, maybe, but I can’t tell you how productive I felt while we had our phones turned off, how-in-the-moment and engaged I remained. It works. And everyone should enforce it more: at fellowships, at conferences, even on daily standup meetings. Presence is powerful. 

Nature AND nurture

Many fellowships are held at naturally beautiful places, and there is really something to it. Being in nature helps people breathe more deeply, and allows nervous systems to calm down, especially for city dwellers so used to the sounds of buses and 4 a.m. trash hauling. It’s actually something people have asked for in every fellowship I’ve ever worked on, and for climate activists, scientists, and organizers, it’s also a deeper connection to their work to save the planet.   

At The Rockefeller Big Bets Climate Fellowship, fellows meet at Bellagio, the foundation’s property tucked on the lush mountainous hillsides of Italy. It should be a part of every fellowship—because boy do fellows need it. (Don’t we all?) 

Roses are red. Tears are blue. Reflection makes people vulnerable, too.

The First Movers Fellowship is designed around four pillars: community, innovation, leadership, and reflection. As I read that last point, I was skeptical. When I was running fellowships and we were short on time, reflection was the first thing to go.

But the Aspen Institute holds it sacred. Every morning, we’d read a poem together as a group, and then reflect on it together. No matter how packed the schedule, or how busy the day ahead, we’d read a poem, journal, go slow, and stay quiet. It was an on-ramp to the day. And a beautifully deliberate design choice.

On the third day, they shared this poem, (which someone in my cohort aptly called a sermon). After three days of becoming more vulnerable and authentic together, half the room was sobbing, openly, loudly. This openness led to more sharing, more intimate conversations, and funnily enough— better advice for my project. Yes, we instantly felt closer, which had an impact on how we worked together.  

Read the room

As much as I valued poetry and reflection at Aspen, it is really important that fellowship designers keep their agendas dynamic, and adjust to the needs of the people in the room. At the Earthshot Prize retreat, we tried to make space for reflection—but we learned, it wasn’t what fellows needed most. While our sound bath activity was highly-attended, we swapped out our daily morning meditation moment to give fellows more transition time in the after-breakfast time slot. I loved writing and leading these nature-based visualizations, but loved giving the fellows that space to do what they wanted, even more. 

Free time frees the mind

When I looked at our schedule for the Aspen seminar, I was astonished to see big breaks every day. There were organized activities that folks could go do together, like hikes, gondola rides, and ice cream in downtown Aspen, but fellows could own their schedules. I swam each day, and really took reflection to heart. And every afternoon, I found myself coming back ravenous for the content and conversation, more engaged and more present. It seems counterintuitive, really, but those breaks made me work more. 

After the first year of the Earthshot Fellows retreat, we asked for feedback about the experience. One of the resounding themes was a call for “more time to just relax,” and “space to get to know each other outside of the content.” And we listened, adding it in the next year. 

It’s hard to solve big problems alone 

When I was being interviewed by a former Aspen fellow as part of the application process, they stressed over and over how important community and connection is for the success of the program. After only five days with the Aspen fellows, I felt so close to all of them—a crucial source of support in the fight to tackle big problems, like inclusive AI and research, menopause tech, indigenous farming support, equitable financial systems, to name a few. 

And creating intentional space for people to be vulnerable and honest about what they're going after —It's the only way to set them up to make true progress. And it’s the future vision that I’ll never stop designing for. 

A few weeks ago, in the middle of a Monday, I was slowly swimming laps in a beautiful saline pool just below the peaks of Aspen, away from my laptop and dings of Slack.

For years, our system has been grappling with ever-constricting constraints—low supply, high demand; increasing life expectancy; and escalating treatment costs. There’s no question that the healthcare landscape is at a critical juncture. As Ian Abbs, Managing Director of Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals in the UK, so eloquently articulated in Amsterdam last month, “Health care as we know it will end; change has to come."

But as we know well, big constraints and difficult conditions can be an incredible impetus for innovation. We now have remarkable new tools, therapies, and emerging technologies at our disposal. The potential to accelerate drug development has never been greater, and we amass more and more data every day. The organizations that take advantage of these opportunities and develop innovative solutions will be at the forefront of enormous value creation.

From the transformative potential of AI to the urgent need to rethink emergency medicine, here are the six key opportunity areas we took away from HLTH EU 2024 in Amsterdam. These areas have the potential to produce significant improvements in health outcomes and substantial advantages for organizations that bring them to life with a human-centered lens.

1. The promise of digital health is still waiting to be fulfilled

Ten years ago, digital health was poised to revolutionize healthcare. It was the promised future, the answer to the worst of our problems, and the route to better, healthier lives. Yet, despite such a clear need, its full potential remains untapped, focused instead on data collection, controlling costs, and optimizing for outdated systems

Digital health needs to shift its focus to the meaning behind the data, and how to better support patient and provider health. Remote care channels could extend the reach of doctors. Sensing technologies could enable whole-body care. Digital therapeutics could complement more traditional care. But realizing the potential of this space requires a deep understanding of the core needs and a mastery of digital channels.

Designers and digitally-fluent innovators will play a critical role in creating patient- and provider-centered, secure digital health solutions that improve patient outcomes and deliver on this decade-long promise.

2. AI will be transformative–if we are able to learn from the past

Artificial intelligence (AI) stands to revolutionize global healthcare systems; its potential spans from expediting drug development to increasing the efficacy of patient care. But only if we learn from the errors of digital health. 

Products that harness AI to interact with patients, collect more accurate data, and summarize medical histories and symptoms without time constraints could provide healthcare workers more time to focus on patient care, complex cases, and advancing their fields. Hospital administrators could use AI to create digital twins, aiding in patient assessment, disease mitigation, and treatment plans. And with an expected 20 percent increase in demand for care, but only a projected eight percent growth in workforce, AI could reduce the administrative burden by over 40 percent, making it a vital tool for the long-term sustainability of healthcare systems 

But these myriad applications need to be so much more than the latest cool tech, or a tool for operational efficiency. If we are able to demonstrate the genuine potential of the technology by placing the human experience at the center, we will enhance the healthcare experience and improve patient outcomes. But only if we avoid the missteps of the past.

3. Addressing burnout is crucial to the sustainability of health systems

The healthcare sector is facing workforce shortages and severe provider burnout, which was only worsened during the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic. The shifting expectations of the next generations of healthcare workers—Millennials, Gen Z, and soon, Gen Alpha—make attracting and retaining healthcare professionals even more challenging, further straining availability of talent.

It is hard to be compassionate at work when your workplace doesn't have compassion for you. We need to center the experience of healthcare workers to address this crisis head-on. Healthcare organizations can create holistic approaches to staffing, leverage technology to support administrative tasks, become more purpose-driven to align with the values of a new generation of caregivers, and create authentic work environments that support the reasons younger generations get into healthcare. Designers have a unique role to play in envisioning and implementing solutions that not only alleviate burnout, but also reimagine the future of work in healthcare. 

4. How is women’s health not a more urgent priority?

Women make up more than 50 percent of the patient base and influence a significant share of healthcare spending and decisions, and yet women's health continues to be marginalized. Centuries of historical biases in medical research and clinical trials, along with more recent policy shifts, have resulted in a chronic a lack of understanding and funding, and an inability to effectively treat women.

This is fundamentally an issue of equity. Elevating women's health requires focused efforts to address these historical gaps, including increasing representation in clinical trials and prioritizing gender-specific research. The rise of health startups focused entirely on women is beginning to fill this void, but much more needs to be done.

By championing women's health initiatives, prioritizing better understanding the needs of women, and supporting female-led ventures in health, we can significantly improve care and counter these long-held biases. This not only enhances health outcomes, but also designs for the influence women have in healthcare decisions.

5. Data could change the whole game

The explosion of personalized data presents both an incredible opportunity and one of the most significant challenges in healthcare today. The question of who controls data—individuals, organizations, or government—remains unresolved. 

Healthcare urgently needs to find the appropriate balance of data use, and to do so at a human level. Personalized data should be owned by the patient. Carefully anonymized data needs to be shared for learning and improvement. And empowering people to understand and use health data remains an outsized opportunity for healthier living.

Designing systems that balance these valid concerns requires a collaborative effort across sectors to establish patient-centered solutions that treat and respect each patient today and tomorrow. Doing so will be the key to unlocking growth and scale.

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6. Emergency rooms cannot be the first mile of care

Emergency medicine has become the de-facto single point of entry into healthcare for many, rather than a safety-net, which is neither sustainable nor efficient. To improve outcomes and reduce costs, we need to radically rethink how and where patients best access care.

Innovative solutions, such as telehealth, community-based care, and better deployment of in-home services could radically improve care for chronic conditions. Meanwhile, strengthening public education to help people discern true emergencies can alleviate strain, and reimagining triage systems by integrating data when patients are en route to emergency rooms can improve speed and efficacy, creating a human connection between patients and healthcare practitioners in a way that meets patients in the context of their lives.

To do that, we’ll need to design for flexibility and resilience, and always place humans at the center of the experience, ensuring that emergency services can adapt to varying levels of demand while maintaining high standards of care.

The challenges we face are significant, but they also present unprecedented opportunities for transformation. By thinking radically about the role of technology, centering onthe human experience, and designing widely and inclusively, we can create healthcare systems that are more equitable, resilient, and sustainable. 

At IDEO, there’s nothing we love more than diving into the biggest, gnarliest challenges of an industry alongside leading experts. If you are interested in exploring these opportunities further or partnering with us to drive change in healthcare, get in touch.

Together, we can create a healthier future for all.

Globally, healthcare systems are under massive strain—and not just because of the lingering effects of Covid.

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.

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