Recently I had the honor of speaking about design for impact during the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York. In the audience were some of the most influential, action-oriented, and socially responsible leaders in the world. It was a wonderful opportunity to talk with Fast Company edit...

The first two OpenIDEO challenges have recently been completed and now the trick is spreading the best ideas with the goal to have some be implemented. The results of the the educational tools challenge, sponsored by Grey Matters Capital, have been presented at the Enterprising Schools Symposium in ...

We have been working on a project for a while now that we are very excited about. It is called OpenIDEO and it is launching today. We are hoping that we can create a platform for you to work with us on some important social innovation projects. Don't worry if you are not a practicing designer. There...

I posted about the Human Centered Design (HCD) Toolkit back in December. Since then it has been downloaded over 6200 times. It is now available in its second edition. You can find out more about it on IDEO's website (and download it for free) here and, if you don't want to go through the hassle of p...

d.light, the solar powered lighting company that came out of the Stanford D-school, is looking for design thinkers in New Delhi. One of the job titles "Human Torch" sounds faintly scary but illuminating. For those who are interested in making contact, the link is here. Building design thinking capa...

A team at IDEO is running an experiment in collaborative design. They are working with the Acumen Fund on a project to bring access to clean water to people living in Africa and India. They are blogging about the experience and you can see the posts here....

There is quite a debate going on around IDEO at the moment about the merits of the Tata Nano. On the one hand some are concerned about the increased emissions and congestion a conversion to cars will cause in India and other poorer economies. Others worry that it sets off yet another round of unsust...

I have been a bit slow to mention the publication of a wonderful new book by Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of the Acumen Fund. The Blue Sweater is the story of the work that Jacqueline has been doing for the last twenty years in Africa, India and Pakistan. There are many messages that the book has ...

Sir William Beveridge initiated the creation of Great Britain's welfare state with his first report in 1942. He defined an approach to public services that was intended to create an active collaboration between citizen and state. By the time of his third report in 1948 he expressed the concern that ...

One of the most optimistic and exciting sessions at Davos was named The Girl Effect. After much effort by the Nike Foundation, run by Maria Eitel, and the UN Foundation the folks at Davos were pursuaded to have a plenary focused on how unlocking the potential of adolescant girls in all parts of the ...