Conference Agenda

In this work, we introduce the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)’s STEAM x D (STEAM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics, and D = Design Thinking) transdisciplinary collaborative workshop, which was carried out for a total of 47 participating high school students (18-years old) in which about 40% were female students. In this 5-day workshop the students worked in teams of 4 to 5 students along 10 SUTD faculty members from several disciplines, 11 SUTD undergraduate helpers, and members from the Multi Rotor club to solve a design challenge using a systems approach complemented with human-centric, design thinking, and technology-based elements as part of our daVinci@SUTD immersion programme, which seeks to inspire youth in human-centered design and innovation that are grounded in STEM education fused with the understanding of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences to serve greater societal needs. In general, survey feedback showed high levels of student engagement, awareness of using engineering, technology and design thinking to solve real-life problems, and an overall students found the workshop useful and insightful.

In an age of disruption and challenging educational demands, we need our Higher Education Institutions to make the necessary changes in policy and strategy to remain relevant. Responsible innovation is therefore an essential condition of the future. Design and engineering education are potential catalysts to address many of the global issues facing the planet at this point in time. In pursuit of responsible innovation, we need to transform the current educational paradigms that have been shaped by traditional discipline definitions. In pursuit of such ambitions, it is critical to shift towards a transformative learning model that enables us to create a sustainable and sustainability-focused learning eco-system to foster a culture of reflective and informed innovation. A strong narrative is emerging from the literature around the need to shift from a tradition of disciplinarity to one of increased consideration for transdisciplinarity. Higher Education Institutions need to consider developing more relevant frameworks for co-ordinating and creating new disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to inform both teaching and research. Higher Education is recognised for its focus on the construction and dissemination of knowledge, traditionally through discipline defined ‘silos’ or within ’tribes’. However, this model of disciplinarity is dissolving as an appropriate means of taking on the increasing challenges and complexity of sustainability. Sustainability is singularly the most prevailing and pervasive contemporary question facing Higher Education Institutes now and into the near future. For Higher Education Institutions this involves addressing questions around ‘sustainability of education’ and ‘education for sustainability’. We need to find better ways of constructing and exploiting the knowledge capacity of our Higher Education Institutes. The challenge is to find effective means of crossing discipline boundaries to better exploit existing discipline knowledge in multi- and inter- disciplinary ways with the aspiration to generate an increase in transdisciplinary activity and generate new and appropriate knowledge to address the challenges of the future. This paper aims to critically explore the potential of Transformative Learning Theory as a catalyst for radically transforming the two-dimensional vertical discipline order of higher education and re-orienting it into a three-dimensional transdisciplinary innovation matrix. We need to cultivate transformation in the very way our institutions facilitate and enable the future of learning in an increasingly unstable natural eco-system. Human imagination, creativity and innovation have failed to find adequate solutions to questions of sustainability within the existing paradigm. They have been shackled by the limitations of thought by which siloed knowledge has been constrained. The potential of the collective human imagination, creativity and innovation is vast and capable of enabling us to cohabitate sustainably with all life on our planet. The process of transformative learning involves transforming existing frames of reference through critical reflection of assumptions, validating contested beliefs through discourse, acting on one’s own reflective insights, and critically assessing both context and application.

This paper will also draw on narrative case study observations and findings from interventions in a BSc Product Design at Technical University Dublin to consider approaches and methods that can enable transformative learning in a transdisciplinary setting.

There is a growing trend fostering interdisciplinary projects at universities, as scholars and students from different fields unite to tackle complex problems to real-world challenges. This research explores how 25 food science, industrial design and graphic design students and three instructors from the same disciplines collaborated to address declining dairy milk consumption in the United States. The project had three phases (P): research, design, and innovation. In P1, student teams studied the dairy industry and packaging-related topics, including regulatory constraints, farm management, market and brand analysis, packaging technologies, and environmental impacts. In P2, individual students designed dairy labels for a 1-gallon US plastic jug and a ½ gallon US paperboard container. P2 designs were evaluated in a 100-person consumer sensory panel and a national survey reaching 619 people. In P3, student teams designed new environmentally responsible milk packaging forms and purchasing experiences. Results in P1 indicate that students working in multidisciplinary teams developed a comprehensive understanding of milk. P2 packaging results differed by one design between the sensory panel and the national survey. P3 designs were not surveyed for this study. Educationally, students reported a mixed learning experience. Some embraced the challenges of a research-driven class project, while others found the disciplinary and cultural differences chaotic and emotionally challenging. The two-year difference between graphic and industrial students exposed professionalism differences. Instructors reported a positive educational experience but would train future classes on private vs public feedback, personal vs user-driven design narratives, and consumer-driven design ranking.

Industrial Design programs over the past two decades have modified their curriculum content to address the shifting technology, society economies and the expanding opportunities that design can address. Industrial Design has seen great value in the approach of Design Thinking which is reflected in education through course project methodologies where solutions may take a variety of forms beyond that of traditional products by working with a human centered approach. A key aspect to these methodologies is storytelling through the sketch depiction of human figures. Although Industrial Designers have developed techniques and methods to sketch products and often even environments, sketching the human figure bears further investigation. Sketch depictions of humans range from simple doodle figures as a means of brainstorming, to detailed renderings of end users for concept presenting. With figure sketch depiction offering many opportunities in today’s Design Thinking climate, this paper asks the question “At what level of realism in human figure sketching is optimal for design storytelling?” In the paper we examine the range of sketching humans from extremely simplified to highly realistic and detailed, and what range of abstract to realism provides designers in today’s climate the promotion of idea development and presenting.

As is clear from the urgency of the themes in this conference, we are in a time of rapid change in design priorities, and these must be reflected in design education. A decade ago we would expect to see student collaborations with corporations, exploring new ways to meet customer needs, towards the implicit, and often unquestioned, goal of commercial profit. Now, outside academia urgent new priorities range from social inequalities to the climate emergency, combining with a widespread recognition of design’s tools and methods in broader spheres of application, to create important new roles for design professionals. These shifts are reflected in education, fostering responsible design through collaborations with new kinds of stakeholders, technologies and expert advisers.

This paper contributes an example of such a multidisciplinary, design-led, innovation project, with student output and learning outcomes, reflections and subsequent developments.

Framed within a course that emphasises personal purpose for change-making in the world, and alongside other units focusing on designing with ethical, environment and social responsibility, this unit tasked MA/MSc students of Innovation Design with applying artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to human rights and humanitarian issues. Small teams developed concepts in an intensive 3 week block. For practical and ethical reasons this was without direct end-user engagement – in contradiction to our usual mantra of ‘know your user’.

The project brings expert insights, inspiration and guidance from fields of AI and ML, but also international criminal law & war crimes, collective intelligence, gamification, gender based violence and people trafficking.

The process and outcomes are shared as examples of rapid learning outcomes from an intensive activity, light on technical instruction, and without direct user engagement. The outcomes were in the conceptual stage, but their viability is being explored to assess potential beyond the project limits. Some highlight concepts include assistance for law enforcement against sex trafficking, gathering secure evidence against intimate partner violence, protecting protesters’ anonymity, and assisting fair and legally robust asylum applications.

In this, as for many of the services and products conceived by students of this programme, the designer is acting for users and stakeholders outside of the consumer-corporate dynamic (whereby a desired service is paid for in a transaction, with money or attention). The beneficiaries may be victims or potential victims of horrific abuses, and cannot ethically or practically be included directly in research or testing by students. Despite this, the project format demonstrates that for early stage concepts there is value in secondary research and empathic methods. Student feedback indicated a strong appreciation for the opportunity to explore such challenges, and for a sense of purpose, reward or validation in their efforts to create futures that are inclusive and just. Several expressed desire to work in related fields after graduation.

[NB my related abstract ‘AI/ML and Human rights: Complex technology and Out-of-reach contexts’ was accepted for EPDE2021. I didn't complete the paper for health reasons, and the work remains unpublished. This revision reflects further work and a shift in emphasis according to the conference themes.]