The TL;DR here: it is very busy with super interesting projects exploring generative things and civic protocol economies, but there is room for some more (contract) work. Feel invited to reach out if you want inspiration or explore the impact of human-AI partnerships and beyond.
What have I been up to the last months?
Research into Civic Protocol Economy – For the Civic Interaction Design research group of Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, funded by the Center of Economic Transformations, I was a researcher in residence to do an explorative research into the question “What happens when civic economy meets protocol economy?”. A report was made to be the point of departure for future research planning via literature review and expert interviews. The first step is organizing a so-called design charette in the fall (funded through the Center of Expertise Creative Innovation).
More via: https://civicinteractiondesign.com/projects/exploring-civic-protocol-economies/
Continuous development civic prototyping hoodbot – After the completion of the Rotterdam project Cities of Things LAB010, we continued the research and developing of the civic-prototyping tool to explore robo-perspectives in cities. What if AI in the city becomes part of the physical environment? How can we give citizens a voice into their own futures? The Wijkbot Kit was further developed with funding from the Expertise Network for Systemic Co-Design (ESCall), and we tested it in several workshops at conferences like PublicSpaces and Society 5.0 Festival. Also numerous student projects took the hoodbot as topic, in bachelor and master projects. Together with Tomasz Jaskiewicz I wrote a chapter for the book on living labs of Network of Applied Design Research. And the Wijkbot became part of Handboek Publiekwijs and Kennisportfolio of Rijksoverheid.
Check all latest updates via Cities of Things website and Wijkbot website.
Exhibition Generative Things – As part of the last ThingsCon conference program, I developed an exhibition with provotypes of so-called generative things. What if the future things we use are infused with generative AI capabilities? What will the relationships with these things look like? What do we think should be the function? In the exhibition 12 provotypes were presented and designed by students of Umea Sweden, Master Digital Design Amsterdam, and independent designers.
The exhibition is also part of the future track of the Amsterdam 750 program. It will be seen and discussed further at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences in April and at Waag Futurelab in June.
The RIOT publication 2025 of ThingsCon will also follow the theme of Responsible Generative Things.
Along with this, I developed an inspirational presentation for an evening at CleverFranke and three masterclasses / speculative design workshops held at Dutch Design Week, Avans Health by Tech master, and The Hague University of Applied Sciences master Next Level Engineering.
Weekly and monthly newsletter – I keep continuing the weekly newsletter Target is New and did some format updates. For Cities of Things I write a monthly update including a design exploration of a future thing.
More to come… I am looking into a couple more projects, among others, around responsible AI. There is space for one or more projects or a two-day-a-week program.
So Contact me if you are looking for
- explorative research into the possible future in human-ai co-performances
- inspirational presentation on cities of things
- speculative design masterclass
- research through (co-)design into responsible AI
- digital innovation strategies advise / research
- civic prototyping workshop or program hoodbot and other impactful intelligent technologies
target is new 