Episode 2210: Carissa Carter and Scott Doorley explain how to design the future

Keen On

Carissa Carter and Scott Doorley both teach at Stanford’s interdisciplinary d.school. They are also the joint authors of Assembling Tomorrow, an intriguing new book in which, using their D School experience, Carter and Doorley provide a guide to designing a thriving future. They argue that the future, in all its socioeconomic complexity, can de designed so that we can mend the mistakes of our past and shape that future for the better. For some viewers this might be a bit annoyingly Stanford in its can-do positivity and virtue signaling. But if Carter and Doorley can indeed successfully instill in their d.school students a degree of moral responsibility about designing the technological and economic future, then they will have done the rest of us a great service.

Carissa Carter is a designer, a geoscientist, and the academic director at the Stanford d.school. She’s the author of The Secret Language of Maps: How to Tell Visual Stories with Data (2022) and Assembling Tomorrow: A Guide to Designing a Thriving Future from the Stanford d.school (2024). Carissa teaches design courses on emerging technologies, climate change, and data visualization. Her work on designing with machine learning and blockchain has earned multiple design awards, including Fast Company Innovation and Core 77 awards.

Scott Doorley is a writer, designer, and the creative director at the Stanford d.school. He has overseen everything from books to workspaces to digital products and initiatives focused on the future of learning and design. He has co-written two books: Assembling Tomorrow: A Guide to Designing a Thriving Future from the Stanford d.school (2024) and also Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration (2011). His work has been featured in museums from San Jose to Helsinki and in publications such as Architecture + Urbanism and The New York Times.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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