As the curtain parted on moooi’s 2022 exhibit, the audience was treated to a multi-sensory performance unlike any other: four synchronized robot scent diffusers telling a story through dance. As the robots—called Piro—swayed and dipped to the beats of a custom-designed soundscape, it was easy to forget the performers were made by a team of industrial designers and engineers in San Francisco.

The work expressed a future vision for what it means to humanize technology. Rather than design technology to make our lives more efficient, what if instead we designed technology to make life more beautiful?

For twenty years, moooi has seduced the world with bold, imaginative design. The firm, named after the Dutch word for beautiful, made its name by designing furniture and home goods that appeal to an interest in pushing the edges of form as much as function. Moooi came to IDEO looking to create an exhibit for the largest furniture fair in the world that might provoke the audience to imagine a world where design’s primary function was to inspire joy.

“Defy Gravity”: one of several experiential “worlds” moooi created for the 2022 Salone del Mobile. Each room had its own scent, soundscape, color, and digital experience.

Our process started by going wide. We presented 20 potential conceptual designs to the team, one of which moooi founder Marcel Wanders lovingly referred to as the “farting pet,” a robot scent diffuser that could walk around the home.

A scented smoke ring lingers in the air after Piro’s final crescendo.

From there, a team of IDEO designers enlisted the support of Catie Cuan, a choreographer who specializes in human-robot interaction, and Dutch sound design firm KLOAQ, to refine the concept into a four-minute performance piece.

Piro learned to mimic balletic human gestures.

The final result was technically involved: four robots moved independently, controlled by custom electronics and software designed to mimic the movements and grace of ballerinas. But in the performance itself, the complex mechanics disappeared, allowing the audience to experience not just what technology can do, but how it can make us feel.

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What happens when a designer and a classically-trained choreographer collaborate? Attendees of Salone del Mobile.Milano, the largest furniture fair in the world, got to see for themselves.

To build a climate-resilient future, we need an all-hands-on-deck approach across industries and organizations, as well as the leadership and collaboration of frontline communities themselves. 

To that end, IDEO and CSAA Insurance Group worked together to unite nine partner organizations, including Aon and the Environmental Defense Fund, to launch an open call for solutions to help communities prevent, prepare for, and recover from climate-related disasters. The goal of the Challenge was to surface actionable and scalable ideas that experiment with new technologies, models, and partnerships, then provide innovators with the support and funding they need to get their ideas off the ground and into the hands of frontline communities.

IDEO set these entrepreneurs up for success throughout the submission process, holding one-on-one conversations with participants, sharing constructive feedback on potential solutions, and developing their ideas and skill sets. The team also hosted workshop and panel sessions to grow community bonds and provide expertise on critical topics, including assessing climate risk and storytelling for impact. Hundreds of ideas came in from around the world, ranging from harnessing the power of AI, to building resilient infrastructures, to democratizing access to climate data, and more.

Once all of the ideas were in, a cohort of judges with a wide diversity of work and lived experience screened for concepts that were relevant, impactful, novel, community-informed, and equitable. At the end of the Challenge, the team chose 13 winning concepts with high potential for impact and partnerships, including Reef Rocket, which seeks to fabricate natural biocement reefs that reduce coastal flooding and erosion, and BurnBot, which is working to prevent wildfires by conducting controlled burns at scale.  

For these winning entrepreneurs, the end of the Challenge is just the beginning. Now, they are equipped with critical early funding, as well as a cohort of climate entrepreneurs, along with mentorship from IDEO, CSAA, and the other organizations. It’s a big step forward as they introduce new forms of equitable and transparent data, promote the voices of BIPOC communities, and bring to market new technologies that will protect and support frontline communities through this ongoing crisis. 

Read the Challenge Impact Report to learn more.

In the US alone, climate-related disasters cause $120 billion in damages annually. That figure is five times greater than 50 years ago, and projections are $2 trillion by the end of the century.

Nearly 90% of counties in the US declared a natural disaster over the last decade.

418

submissions

13

winners

$1M

in prizes

Every year, the NSF provides around 30 teams with up to $750,000 and a year’s worth of coaching, training, and collaboration to develop solutions for research areas like sustainable ocean use or combating fake news. Over the course of nine months, the teams learn how to uncover insights about human needs and design durable solutions for end users. But many of the scientists and experts in the program felt stretched by the idea of putting the needs of end users in the mix with their scientific testing—something few of them have been trained to do in their previous work.

To make that process feel more achievable, the teams built out prototypes and received guidance on refining and pitching their ideas along the way. IDEO joined the project as an innovation partner, facilitating hands-on workshops and creating “Science TV” episodes that could help the program reach a broader audience, deepening its impact now and in the future.

To help grantees get vulnerable, and evolve their ways of working, IDEO sent grantees to improv training  so that they could learn to build off each other. The team also took them to magic shows and on ghost tours in downtown San Francisco to learn the value of compelling storytelling in their work. The fun was part of the plan—gelling as a team and building relationships meant participants could make mistakes in front of one another. Being wrong doesn’t come naturally to academics, but it’s a key part of the design process, and a crucial part of solving complex problems .

Each year, a select group of teams move onto the next phase of the “coop-etition,” receiving up to $5 million in additional funding. And all of the participants leave with valuable new skills they can use to break out of their own silos and create human-centered, ground-breaking solutions for the rest of their careers.

When the NSF launched the Convergence Accelerator and made the radical move of bringing together teams from different disciplines, these academics, scientists, and industry partners didn’t have a shared language to move their ideas forward, and needed a structured approach to coming up with new solutions.

164

trained research teams

$200M

in federal support granted to AI-driven innovation, quantum technology, food security, sustainable materials, opportunities for people with disabilities, and more

IDEO and The Earthshot Prize built a nine-month Fellowship program and a five-day, in-person retreat to give Finalists the best shot at reaching the Prize’s ultimate goal: to scale the solutions that will repair our planet this decade.

To build out the new Fellowship, IDEO took a deep dive with the previous year’s Finalists to uncover where they needed critical support. This research revealed that the Finalists needed more ways to leverage the Earthshot platform, connect with potential partners to help scale their ideas, and build community with each other. The IDEO team then used those insights to create a set of recommendations The Earthshot Prize team could implement to create a more supportive and structured experience. Ideas they took forward included assigning a designated “Leap Advisor” who could provide guidance and assistance for each Finalist, as well as an advisor from the Prize’s Global Alliance Network who could partner on specific growth initiatives, like scaling product design, or policy change. 

Next up: the design of the retreat itself. Together, IDEO and the Earthshot team had three goals for the cohort’s week together in Windsor: focus on new forms of leadership and movement building, spur action through storytelling, and foster community.

The team developed the curriculum with leaders from Google X and Speed & Scale, alongside startups like UPSIDE Foods. They designed moments to build community, like paired walks and a chocolate-making workshop where Finalists could get to know each other away from the noise of meetings. 

Photographers captured the event to create assets for Finalists to use when pitching their ideas, and Finalists honed their storytelling skills. But what most remember is the magical moments of coming together as a cohort of next generation climate leaders who will help each other make an impact on the problems facing our planet, long after The Earthshot Prize has concluded.

The problems facing our planet are enormous, spanning industries, borders, currencies, and regulatory environments. Meaningful solutions will require leaders who can work across those lines.

30

climate solutions accelerated in first two years

While beautiful textiles (and now prints!) are Block Shop’s most recognizable output, there’s a good deal more going on behind the scenes. The duo created Block Shop in partnership with a family of printers and dyers in Bagru, Rajasthan to keep the artistry and craft of Indian block printing alive. (They donate five percent of their profits each year to building and implementing community healthcare programs.) If their reverence for craft and respect for humanity isn’t enough to make you weak in the knees, this interview should do it.

In one sentence, who are you?

Hopie Stockman: Josephine March with an MBA.
Lily Stockman: Gertrude Bell on a camel after too much coffee.

What do you do? How did you learn it?

HS: I run Block Shop—a textile and design studio—with my sister, Lily. In reality, I work seven days a week, but five of them take place in our 11th floor downtown Los Angeles studio. I design everything from rugs to public murals to business strategy and Grand Central Market lunch orders for Block Shop.

We both went to grad school; I went for for business and Lily for painting. Rather than dividing our work rigidly between business and creative, we’ve found that it works best when we share responsibilities.

A lot of our education happens in Jaipur, India. In 2010, Lily was living in there and apprenticing under master Indian miniature painter Ajay Sharma when she first met our printers. Since then, we've gone back to Jaipur twice to year to work with them on new designs and products. Everything we know about wood block printing we've learned on the ground while prototyping with our team, lending a hand in all aspects of the process, from dye-mixing to block registration on the fabric.

On the business side, the most valuable advice has all come from the (mostly) women running their own small and successful businesses here in LA. For example, our friend who runs a candle company helped us build our wholesale strategy. When we started out, we thought we wanted just a few huge department store-style accounts to streamline our operations and provide reliable cash flow. She helped us to understand the marketing power of wholesale: that smaller, well-aligned shops could be better storytellers and champions of our brand, and likely wouldn't discount as aggressively.

Another friend who has an independent furniture line shared invaluable advice on how to collaborate with large companies, emphasizing the importance of control over the design and fabrication process. Megaretailers actually need the cool factor of small, independent brands in order to be relevant. The question for small brands is whether the paycheck and promise of exposure is worth the potential chargebacks, brand dilution, and even customer alienation. For us, we've learned that it doesn't work unless we're making the products ourselves and have control over the storytelling.

What are your 3 favorite possessions?

HS:

1. Otto, our bearded mutt.
2. A painting of a rabbit that my great grandfather painted 60 years ago.
3. The Kishore Kumar Bollywood poster that my now-husband and I bought together at the Chor Bazaar in Mumbai, when we had only been dating a few months. It sort of signified that leap into a shared life—jointly owning things.

LS:

1. My baby Olympia.
2. My dog, who I bought from the pound for $85.
3. My gold bangle bracelets given to me by our surrogate grandmother, collected from her travels around the world.

What does a typical work session look like?

LS: On design days, we hide our laptops and put the screens away. No phones, no nothing! Out come the old art books on Anni Albers, Arp, Matisse, and Sheila Hicks. We put some Grateful Dead on, get the watercolors out, and swap sketches back and forth across the table. The result is so much better when we do it together. We’re always improving each other’s work. We try to design like this for two-to-three hours once a week, which is pitiful, but that’s the reality of running a small company; the actual drawing sessions take up only a small percentage of our time.

When it comes to our work, we have a simple design rule: Everything Block Shop touches must hold up as a holistic composition. That means it needs to have balance and a sense of quiet. My favorite painting teacher said, "You know a painting is done when it's quiet. Nothing on the canvas is yelling at you." And if it doesn’t look good hanging on the wall, then it doesn’t go into production.

How do you get over creative block?

HS: Take Otto for a walk past the old movie palaces in downtown L.A. to remember that inspiring design lives everywhere in architecture. On a recent prototyping trip to India, I started panicking that we’d exhausted all geometric patterns—THAT’S IT, WE’RE FINISHED! WE’VE USED EVERY ITERATION OF CIRCLES AND TRIANGLES! Then we went for a walk to get chai with our sketchbooks in hand, and boom! All sorts of ideas emerged from the marble latticework and archways in the old city. We simply needed to look.

What was the last item on your to-do list?

LS: Plan a Texas road trip starting in Marfa, where our friends run the El Cosmico.

How do you see the world in 2078?

HS: A degree or two warmer. Governed by data and manufactured by robots, with no boundaries between advertising, entertainment, and politics. Hopefully, I’ll be with the people who’ve returned to hands-on, empathy-based, slow living….off with my grandkids somewhere outside making pinch pots.

What's your number one bucket list item?

HS & LS: Design a boutique hotel.

Who are you creative crushin’ on lately?

HS: Katja Blichfeld, co-creator of High Maintenance. (If you’re out there, hey.)

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There are creative crushes and then there are girl crushes. This qualifies as both—squared. Sisters Lily and Hopie Stockman are the founders of Block Shop, a textile company based in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree. I discovered Lily and Hopie a few years ago through an online web of women makers, and have been feverishly following their work ever since.

As a Third Culture Kid, I took pictures to trace my changing worlds. These days, capturing and reflecting on images is how I feed my sense of wonder. This creativity challenge uses a dash of intention to keep your curiosity engaged throughout the day.

1. Morning Capture

In the morning, take a picture of something or someone around you.

Make a mental note of why you photographed the subject. What caught your attention? Then, examine the image. Identify one element or aspect of that image that strikes you. It can be anything—an object in the frame, a color, a texture, a mood. What sparks your curiosity? This is the kernel of inspiration for the next picture you’ll take in this short series.

Write down and complete this sentence: In my next picture, I’m curious about exploring ______.

2. Midday Capture

In the afternoon, take a picture inspired by the kernel of inspiration you wrote down earlier and reflect on what you appreciate about this new capture. Then, look at the image, studying it to identify a new kernel for the next picture you’ll take.

Write down and complete this sentence: In my next picture, I’m curious about exploring ______.

3. Evening Capture

In the evening, take a picture inspired by the kernel of inspiration you jotted down in the afternoon.

Then, look back at the first and last images you captured. Compare them. What’s their relationship to one another? What do you make of their juxtaposition?

Did your curiosity take you far from where you started? Did you circle around a single idea? What does that say about you in this moment of your life? Even if the setting didn’t change much, noticing details in your everyday environment can be a worthwhile exercise—especially in an era of selfies.

I hope this challenge was an easy way to observe what's around you. It can also be compelling if done over a week or month. Instead of taking multiple pictures in one day, take one picture per day and identify a kernel of inspiration to steer your focus for the photo you snap the next day, and repeat. Compare your first image with your very last, and reflect on the journey.

One last provocation: Pass this creative challenge to someone you know. Just copy and paste the instructions and, in the spirit of generosity, give them your last image to help inspire the first image they might take—like a visual chain letter.

Creativity isn’t a state of being—it’s a practice. So Fast Company created a 14-day challenge, tapping some of the most intriguing and productive minds in their community to provide exercises to help their readers reach their creative potential. One of their contributors is our own Roshi Givechi, partner and executive design director at IDEO New York. Here’s her recipe for discovering inspiration in the every day.

I came up with the concept years ago, when I realized that I had grown up so dependent on Google maps in London that I could barely recognize a street two blocks from my house. I’ve always liked to do mental exercises, pinpointing different places in the world I wanted to visit, or figuring out which direction I would need to go to get home.

IDEO projects rely on a brief and constraints. But I decided this project would be boundless. I wasn't going to rely on it financially, so I could take risks and experiment without worrying about money. It would also put me in the shoes of the very people for whom I often design. We work with startups a lot, so building my own to learn the struggles and nuances of a project like this would give me insight into what founders go through.

Over the last couple of years, our team has had many failures and successes. We’ve learned that it’s tough to keep a team motivated to work on a side project. We managed to build the prototype and the campaign in a very short time, but when the harder, darker part of the development began, momentum slowed and problems took longer to solve, causing delays.

Today, we are four weeks away from shipping the first units, and have around 2,000 people waiting for Haize to arrive, so I answer a ton of questions by email every day. No matter how good your intentions, there will be both positive and negative feedback.

Here’s what I have learned—and relearned—from this startup phase:

1. It is all about the team, and users are part of that team. Make sure to consider them as you make decisions for your company and your product.
2. Coming up with an idea is fun, but actually figuring out how to make it work is longer, harder, and darker. Get ready for it.
3. Show your face. Revealing the people behind the work gives the project and services a deeper dimension.
4. Storytelling can be as important as the product itself. It keeps the team excited, leading to better and more efficient work. It also helps users feel more personally involved in the process and the product.
5. Mike Tyson said, "Everyone has a strategy until they get punched in the nose." Many of your strategies will probably fail. It’s a very humbling experience. But it helps you grow and learn.

Above all, though, this project has let me do something that is really important to me as an interaction designer: empower people with technology without substituting their own skills. Haize doesn’t tell people where to go—it just helps them find their way. To me, it’s a great metaphor for the work designers do everyday.

What have you learned from your side project or startup? Reach out to IDEO on Twitter.

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When I learned that I would have to wait for a visa before starting my job as an interaction designer at IDEO, it felt like the perfect moment to do something I’d always wanted to do: develop a product from initial concept to final production and delivery. I went after an idea I’d had for a long time: A smart compass for bikes that points you to your destination, without giving you full-on directions. I named it Haize.

To get him on board with what we need to do next, I turn all of our actions into play. When I want to leave the house quickly, I play "who can get a toy to take with us faster" game. When I want to put him to bed, I start “gotta sleep otherwise a monster will come and get you" play. It doesn’t always work like I want it to, but it’s still much easier to convince my son to move on to the next action of play, rather than asking him to follow my instructions.

Children develop skills through play. They repeat things when they’re fun, which helps them master things, and gives them the confidence to attempt the next challenge. This is the way we all grew up. But we tend to abandon that as adults.

As we get older, play starts to feel improper. We’re not supposed to be curious about things that are considered normal or ordinary in the world of adults. Sometimes, even something as simple as going to the movies can start to feel lazy; you have to start to push yourself to do things that are fun and without practical purpose.

In Japan, where I live, the pressure of the adult world is particularly strong, and people who are interested in things that no one else is interested in are often labeled as “Kuuki ga yomenai hito.” The exact translation is “people who can’t read the air.” It is widely used in the office environment when someone disagrees with others, or in casual conversation, if, say, you and your friends go to a restaurant and you are the only one who orders something different.

Because of this strong social pressure, we stop doing things just because we like them, and agree with others as much as possible to avoid standing out. Another Japanese proverb offers a similar sentiment: “The nail that sticks out gets hammered in.” In this kind of cultural environment, we start looking for the logical reasons for everything we do, and stop following our intuition.

Thanks to my son—and probably my job as a designer—I'm aware of that pressure and try not to be swayed by it. I’m a curious person. I would rather make time for playing or plotting small pranks—like putting googly eyes on street signs, playing connect the dots with a pen and the moles on my skin, or creating random D.I.Y. bento events with friends.

To keep my childlike impulses intact, I’ve made three rules for myself to stick to:

1. Purposely do things without purpose. We are trained to make goals, meet deadlines, and get things done. Doing something with no end goal helps you listen to your instincts.
2. It is OK to not understand. There are so many unknowns in this world, and you will not be able to understand everything, even when you are old and wise. Sometimes the way you feel is better than a definitive answer.
3. Let yourself be a curious animal. We all are interested in different things—that is what makes the world interesting. No matter how weird or useless or off the wall your interest, embrace it.

Follow these basic creative principles and it will supercharge your imagination, allowing you to see the world in a more playful, childlike way. I know of no better way to set the stage for creativity, design, and inventing something new.

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Since I started my life with my son, the way I plan my day has totally changed. He’s an imaginative child who talks to invisible friends and turns the bathtub into a racetrack. He loves to play, and he does not like to stop, even when I am in rush to get to a meeting or it’s already way past his bedtime.

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.