summ( )n

Last Friday I participated in a very interesting workshop, aimed at the ‘co-creation of the future curriculum’… to explore the futures! The workshop was called by the Haagse Hogeschool (which was lately reformed into the Hague University, so I should drop the name ‘school’ in the future).

Few years ago I was teaching at the TU/e (Technical University/Eindhoven) a course about future studies and their application in design. It was a very innovative course, co-developed by a few colleagues of mine and myself, that combined both theoretical part (we gave some lectures) and practical assignments, and where students conducted their own ‘future research by design’ projects. We taught the course over three years, getting the highest scores from the students in their annual evaluation forms; it was discontinued because of the financial squarrels between TU/e and Philips.

I am currently looking for a teaching opportunity, and it is in this context I was caught into the above workshop. It was a very interesting effort to co-develop a new course for the students that would teach them to create, if not ‘future-proof’ than ‘future-oriented’ solutions, combined the knowledge of the new technologies, social developments and business realities.

The team was great, with quite diverse people, from students and just-ex-students-who-became-entrepreneurs, to professors and ‘other professionals’ (i.e., me). The workshop was moderated by Eleselien Eperma, from Sunidee company, itself an interesting example of innovative agency.

I feel we developed not one, but whole three courses for the University, with some overlaps, of course, but also with a plenty of interesting gems and insights. Kudos to all!