IDEO was recently recognized as one of Fast Company’s top five “Fast 50†Most Innovative Companies, alongside Google, Facebook, Apple and GE. We are thrilled to see an organization that has been a valued partner to us for years get this recognition, and not only for its award-winning design work, but also for its proactive stance on having a social impact. Tim Brown, their CEO, was quoted saying “As social issues increasingly become business issues, this will be a critical new direction for design.”
Our work with IDEO has included a collaborative project to bring design innovations to the challenge of water storage and transportation in the developing world. Having worked on a team with IDEO designers, I was struck by the passion and interest across the company in projects that have a potential for social impact. Despite long dusty road trips to remote Rajasthani villages with scarce water supplies, and getting soaked on rainy days in Mumbai slums, interviewing local water consumers, the team at IDEO showed an incredible level of enthusiasm for listening to the needs of consumers whose needs are not being met. This may not have always been the norm for a design company famous for designing the first Apple mouse, and the interiors of jet airplanes, but it is becoming the hallmark for IDEO, which sees addressing developing world issues as core to its culture and its strategy. For the past two years, the Acumen Fellows have benefited from training on design thinking from IDEO, and an IDEO designer joined this year’s cohort and is now working in India with Scojo, one of our investees.
The role of cutting-edge design thinking in solving critical social issues is now being explored by companies like IDEO, and institutions like the Stanford Institute of Design and the IIT Institute of Design, as well as the non-profit Design that Matters. We look forward to seeing more applications of human-centered design to the many solvable problems facing low-income markets around the globe, and congratulate IDEO on its success demonstrating true innovation and leadership.
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