Greg Van Alstyne, David Ing, Peter Scott, and Zaid Khan
Where is systemic design present in our lives?
The emergence of systemic design as an approach and practice has coevolved in the Toronto, Canadian and global landscape based as a course in the Strategic Foresight and Innovation (SFI) program at OCAD University. With decades now passed since the launch of the program in 2009, and various degrees of uptake around the design and innovation communities, systemic design can be understood both as elusive in where it exists locally and omnipresent in how it permeates throughout.
Digging into ‘arcs of impact’, we invite attendees into facilitated, small group conversations to unravel this paradox. We will reflect, explore, discover and share venues for where systemic design is most present in our lives. At RSD14, self-identifying community members can come together to share opportunities in which professional development can be extended beyond postgraduate studies.
This workshop welcomes current students, alumni with systemic design or “SD-adjacent” degrees, and “accidental” systemic designers who have found themselves drawn in. For example, in our socially constructed world today, we grapple with many social, political, environmental, and economic challenges (and opportunities), from which we can create fundamental questions to explore. As such, we invite you to unconference into the conversation with your ideas, which may include, but are not limited to, bringing a piece of artefact (s) to use as a prop (or tool) to introduce and explore systemic design from your perspective.
This RSD14 workshop is led by four members of the OCAD University community as part of a 2025 project to reinvigorate the sLab.
KEYWORDS: systemic design, strategy, innovation, alumni,
RSD TOPIC(S): Cases & Practice, Learning & Education
Get the full picture
The RSD14 workshop folder contains a downloadable brief with each workshop's context and background, agenda, facilitator profiles, and key references.