Teman Evans, Global Chief of Design, General Mills, Ben Sheppard, co-founder and Chair, Design for Good , Moderator: Tony Chambers, Studio TC & Friends
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00:00Well, hello. Here we are, team. It is a pleasure to be back in Macau with you, and as Clay
00:05rightly says, this is an update on Design for Good, three words which I hope you will
00:12choose to have tattooed somewhere on your body by the end of this presentation.
00:18Just to recap what Clay said, Design for Good is a global non-profit alliance. It brings
00:24together thousands of the world's best designers. It puts them into teams. They work in partnership
00:30with governments, with charities, with development organizations to develop new products and
00:35services for free that directly improve the world around us.
00:40Now, before Tamar comes on stage, I thought I'd touch on a few things with you. Firstly,
00:45the secret history of why Design for Good exists at all, a little bit about the progress
00:50made over the last two years. I want to give you some examples of projects that are being
00:56worked on right now as we speak, and I'll give you a little glimpse into the future
01:01as well. First, hold my hand as we go back in time
01:06to why this organization exists. For many years, I had the fortune to host chief design
01:13officers, over 50 extraordinary leaders who collectively make products and services that
01:20touch seven out of eight lives on earth. Now, with that level of influence comes extraordinary
01:27responsibility, and therefore, we would meet to discuss inclusivity, ethics, artificial
01:34intelligence, and on one session, we met to discuss sustainability.
01:38Now, in honesty, many of us during the meeting had to admit that at some point in our careers,
01:46we had been guilty of bringing together hundreds of designers, locking them in a room for a
01:52couple of days, force feeding them pizza, and telling them, you can make the world a
01:56better place. Now, it was done with the best of intentions, but in hindsight, a lot of
02:02that was design theater. It didn't actually make the world better, and therefore, we asked
02:06ourselves the question, if we did set up an organization, what would need to be different?
02:12What would be the guiding principles? And we started coming up with a set of things
02:17that we knew had to be true. Firstly, you would always have to start with development
02:22organizations who had been on the ground for decades and truly understood the user needs
02:27who you were serving. You would need to have many companies taking part, so you could take
02:32the specialist skills from each of the teams and then put them on the projects that mattered.
02:39You would need the time to coach and train people in the skills needed to design for
02:43vulnerable communities. You would need to be able to give the products and services
02:48for free so that those communities could make a profit and use those products sustainably.
02:54And finally, there would need to be enough time for transition. You would need of the
02:58order of two years, not two days, to be able to properly implement and embed change with
03:03new products and services.
03:06You may look at this list and say it is incomplete, imperfect. I would agree with you, but we
03:12felt shame on us if we don't start somewhere. Let's take this. Let's get going. It's
03:16better to make a difference, and we'll improve and iterate as we go. And out of that set
03:22of organizations and chief design officers, over 15 chief design officers, senior leaders
03:28raised their hands to say, we want in. We know we're busy. We know we have a day
03:33job. We have to hit quarterly earnings. But damn that. We have to do something. This is
03:38too important not to invest the time.
03:41So for every organization shown here, they have put in money to fund the time and the
03:46projects. But even more importantly, they have provided their designers between five
03:50days per calendar year and 50 days per calendar year of their top talent to work on the greatest
03:56challenges that we face.
03:58I'm particularly proud that you will notice on this page there are direct competitors.
04:02We have teams with designers from Nestle, General Mills, and Pepsi all working together
04:07for the greater good. And if you look at this beautiful circle, and you do not see your
04:12own organization's logo, then meet with me urgently in the green room afterwards.
04:19Our mission is simple. We are here to mobilize an extraordinary creative alliance of designers,
04:25charities, and experts. We put them together to directly improve lives on our planet. We
04:32do that by making products and services for which we give the IP away for free. And we
04:37measure what we're doing. We measure it against the United Nations Sustainable Development
04:43Goals.
04:44Now a quick show of hands, who knows what the Sustainable Development Goals are? Or
04:48SDGs, as they're affectionately known? Half the audience. So for those who don't, the
04:53Sustainable Development Goals are a set of 17 of the greatest challenges of our time.
05:00They range from dealing with poverty to gender equality to climate change. In 2015, the United
05:07Nations wrote down this list, and they said, wouldn't it be brilliant if by 2030, humanity
05:13had made significant progress on all 17?
05:18Well, here comes the spoiler. Just a couple of weeks ago, they said, how are we doing?
05:24And I'm afraid it doesn't make for rosy reading. Indeed, there are as many of these
05:28sub-metrics where we are actively worse now in 2024 than we were in 2015 compared to those
05:34where we've made improvements. And therefore, what Design for Good does is take direct and
05:39urgent action. For the last two years, we focused on SDG number six, which is around
05:45water and sanitation. For the next two years, we've just launched a fantastic programme
05:50focused on goal number four, which is quality education.
05:55And on the approach that I mentioned, it is so important to partner with extraordinary
06:00organisations who understand this space. So when we dealt for the last two years with
06:04quality water and sanitation, these are the organisations we partnered with. We were also
06:10blessed to have the chair of United Nations Water join our board. But from Walsh Foundation
06:15to Water Starters to UNESCO, these are the people who know how to make a difference.
06:20They wrote a set of briefs, and we were privileged to have over 600 designers from 22 nations
06:27working on those briefs. Just for the sheer fun of it, I will repeat those numbers. 600
06:32designers from 22 nations working together to make a difference. And we don't have time
06:37to show all of the projects, but even if you just look at the 12 most impactful ones that
06:42came out of the programme, you'll see a truly global footprint. And over the coming minutes,
06:47I'm going to give you a taster of four of the projects that are being worked on as we speak.
06:53The first one I'm going to touch on is a topic that probably everyone in this room takes
06:58for granted. It's washing your hands. Yet, depressingly, the United Nations thinks that
07:04over half of child mortality around the world could be avoided with better hand hygiene
07:09and hand washing. It seems extraordinary that that is still such a challenge in 2024.
07:16We partnered with the Wash Foundation to say, what can we do to this? How can we educate
07:20both families and children directly to make a difference? Many ideas, many projects came
07:26out of this work. I'm going to show you one of the team's outputs, which was a simple
07:30physical initiative of a flip book. Let's have a look at it together.
07:46One example, that flip book alone you'll notice has no language, no words, so it can be used
08:04by different cultures. It has been put into the hands of thousands of people already.
08:09It was nominated for a Cannes Lion Award earlier this year. And if you just take two nations,
08:14if you just take Uganda and the Dominican Republic, we're on track to have 120,000 children
08:19saved, sorry, educated, with thousands of them being saved from disease as a result.
08:26If we move from the topic of hand washing to menstruation, unfortunately, it's just
08:31as bleak a picture. In many parts of the world, young women are missing as much of a month
08:36of their education every year, simply because menstruation, they either don't have the sanitary
08:41products or there is a stigma in their culture about going to school whilst on their periods.
08:48We partnered with the founder of Foot Forward Fund, Laura, an extraordinary leader, and
08:53worked with her on what we could do in East Africa. Together, we started putting together
08:58educational materials by working with young women. They created personas that spoke to
09:04them, their experience, the type of people who they connected with, not just materials
09:09taken from the West and stuck into their world without context. And I'll show you again
09:14just a video of how quickly this went from sketches on a board to actually being out
09:19in the field working with young women.
09:38As we speak, those materials are now being taken to more and more women in East Africa.
09:48We're starting in Tanzania. It's already reached 4,000 girls, and we're on track to reach tens
09:53of thousands of more next year. Let's now move from the topic of menstruation
09:59to water access. I was shocked by this one. Still half the world has water scarcity issues
10:05that they face every single year, half the world's population. And what we did in this
10:12particular case was partner up with the United Kingdom. They were facing both water scarcity
10:16issues and also a cost-of-living crisis. We put together a water-saving campaign, and
10:22it was shared with thousands and then millions of people to show how they could simultaneously
10:27save money and save the planet at the same time.
10:31In this particular case, one of the wonderful things that happened was people from Ireland
10:36noticed what was happening in the UK and said, could we steal that? Well, this is where the
10:40free IP comes in beautifully. We could immediately take those materials, give them over to the
10:45government and to charities in Ireland, and allow them to use the materials. And in fact,
10:50we're now in discussion with many other nations to use that same campaign and localize it
10:55for their country. In total, 3.5 million people were touched
10:59by the campaign, and 180,000 have changed their behaviors as a result, saving millions
11:05of liters of clean water. We have time for one more example. This is
11:11on toilets. A complete aside, but if you are interested in toilets, I recommend you watching
11:16a movie about Jack Sim, the self-styled world's number two man and founder of the other WTO,
11:24the World Toilet Organization. He is a passionate speaker about why this matters, and it is
11:29yet another case where almost half the world's population doesn't have access to working
11:34safe toilets. This is a beautiful example of the importance
11:39of having many different organizations in our alliance, because what happened here was
11:43they didn't need a product designer, they needed a service designer. And we partnered
11:48up with Clean Team Ghana, who already had a great portable toilet that no one was using
11:52or not using enough, and we were able to design a new service, a new way of getting this out
11:58into people's hands. And we're lucky to be able to share with you one person who has
12:02received this service, who was initially a skeptic, but to talk about the difference
12:06it's made in his life.
12:08That's already reached 150,000 households, and by their own charity's estimates there
12:33are 35 children alive today who would have died from defecation-based diseases had that
12:38service not been done. So, overall, we continue to be excited by
12:44the impact. We don't have time to discuss them all, but every single project we will
12:48rigorously track. The other piece I want to mention is not just the importance of the
12:53projects themselves, but the education. We're delighted to have partnered with the Royal
12:57College of Art, who are training designers to be able to do this type of work. Indeed,
13:02just two months ago we launched yet another cohort of 500 designers who will hopefully
13:07get formal RCA accreditation in being able to design for social innovation and social
13:13impact. The reason this matters so much is not only does it improve the projects, but
13:18these people are going back into some of the largest, most influential companies in the
13:22world, and the ripple effect of having those skills on every project that they work on
13:28is simply extraordinary. So, I've told you a little bit about what's
13:32happened in the past. I've given you some sense of the projects that are happening right
13:36now. I'll talk a little bit about the future. We have just kicked off a program on quality
13:42education. We've just had UNESCO's chief of education join our board, and there's an extraordinary
13:48group of organizations we're working on, ranging from Code.org, which encourages women into
13:53computer science, through to Children and Crossfire, that gives tools to teachers who
13:58are teaching in active war zones, through to Project Real, which is teaching people
14:03how to identify misinformation, I think a skill that all of us need an ever, ever-increasing
14:08amount. Now, I'll just close by saying, on a personal
14:12note, being part of this global alliance has been the privilege of my personal career,
14:18so if you're in the room representing an academic institution, a government body, or a corporation,
14:25and you want to be part of our growing global alliance, I really encourage you to join us,
14:30and together, we can design for good.
14:46Fantastic work. Well done, Ben. It's really fantastic. What
14:49a wonderful presentation, and what a wonderful initiative, proving that design, and designers
14:59are solving problems others can't. It's a terrific, terrific statement. Also, I can't
15:07wait to get my tattoo, my design for good tattoo. I think we're going to set up a tattoo
15:11parlor outside, so everyone can get that design for good tattoo set up. So, thank you for
15:16joining us, Teman and Ben. Again, once again, that's Brainstorm Design. You're both incredibly
15:22talented gentlemen. Thank you.
15:26One can tell. But both incredibly busy. How do you find the time? Because this, to do
15:33it properly, and you clearly are, from the results we've seen, is an incredibly time-intensive
15:38thing. You've got a pretty busy job, Teman. You were telling me last night, how many brands
15:44are you overseeing?
15:46One hundred.
15:47One hundred brands he is the design director for. How do you fit this in, and what is the,
15:54how did it start? First of all, what was the motivation? How were you drawn into this?
15:59But how do you cope with it?
16:02I think I would answer that by saying I can't afford not to find the time for it, because
16:08of the impact that Ben has just spoken to. I think part of what drew me to it is that
16:14it's really that free piece, the open source piece. It ties into General Mills history.
16:18If you go back, you look at that history, there was a moment when we had an explosion
16:22in one of our mills based on flour, and we created innovative technology to prevent that
16:28from happening. Now, we could have kept that as competitive advantage, but we decided to
16:33open source it and share it with our competitors so that we could lift all boats. For me, I
16:38felt that because that was rooted in our values, that it just, this was the next generation
16:42of that, so why, absolutely, we would be involved and we would prioritize and make time to do
16:47it.
16:48It's there from the roots of the company you work with. You're now amplifying it. Ben,
16:53you gave some statistics of how many designers and design companies and big companies are
17:00involved in it. Another question for you, Tim, because I know you've spoken a lot, Ben.
17:05A lot of people, they're competitors. Other companies, PepsiCo, their rivals there. Usually,
17:15you wouldn't even converse with these people. Top secret information. You can't be seen
17:19together. This seems to have brought a community together of rivals who are now friends. Has
17:25that been a liberating thing?
17:27It's so true. I think, honestly, in the world of design leadership, we chief design officers
17:32are a very small club to begin with, so we all know each other. This really becomes an
17:38extension of that. Now, it does raise the eyebrows of corporate comms. I'd be remiss
17:44not to speak to that. Also, even if we think about the Project Boo work, that arose partly
17:49out of the contributions of two of the members from my design team and PepsiCo designers.
17:56Any other avenue, we'd be competitors. Now, putting that aside, look at what we're able
18:00to do in terms of saving the lives of the next generation of children. That's incredible.
18:06Again, it's this open source idea of you're each working on your highly profitable businesses
18:11and the targets and the challenges of that, but it's a moment where you can put that aside
18:16and focus on something for good.
18:20Education. So, water, you've tackled one of the 17 sustainable goals. Education, a very
18:29broad subject. Where are the challenges there? You mentioned RCA, the Royal College of Art,
18:35coming on board, but what are you going to tackle first?
18:39You're right. It's a huge topic and that's why we've partnered with UNESCO to start understanding
18:46it. At the moment, we've chosen some themes where we think we can make a real difference
18:50as designers. They include teaching healthy habits. They include upskilling communities
18:56who have been forgotten. They include working on misinformation and trust. These are areas
19:01where we believe there is a good connection between the needs of the United Nations and
19:06the skill set that designers can bring.
19:08And Teman, how do you see education?
19:12What I love is that that's such a broad aperture. There's so many ways in that you've spoken
19:17to, but I think that also excites our designers because as the teams now embark on this next
19:21phase of work, they realize that there's so many possibilities in terms of how you'll
19:25win. When we started in the space of water, I think there was perhaps a little trepidation
19:29on the side of our designers. They're like, I don't know anything about that. I need to
19:32educate myself on that. Education means something different to each of us that we've all been
19:37exposed to in one form or another.
19:39Good or bad.
19:40Exactly. So part of it is setting aside our biases and unlearning what we think it is,
19:44but it also means they're ready to go in and have impact.
19:48Yes. As an organization, as a network, an institution, whatever you call it, it's a
19:55baby. It's an infant. It's two years, two and a bit. Challenges of growth. So this is still
20:04small but growing. How are you going to navigate that where it becomes bigger, more designers
20:09come involved? A good challenge to have, but do you see it as potentially problems on the horizon?
20:16I don't.
20:17No, we try to practice what we preach in terms of design approach. We actually
20:24capped it for the first year of only having 10 Alliance members take part. And the idea is that
20:29as we learn what works, what doesn't work, then we will scale from there. So hopefully by the time
20:34we reach 2030, when we're supposed to have collectively completed the SDGs, we will be
20:39at an extraordinary scale where we're training tens of thousands of designers, improving tens
20:44of millions of lives. But we will scale between that as we learn each year what works and what
20:49doesn't.
20:49So it's design thinking, using design thinking to help this grow in an organic and correct way.
20:56Absolutely. And I think there was, honestly, there's infrastructure we needed to put in place.
21:01We were learning on the ground in real time. But that's what happens when you're building
21:05something from scratch. I think the designers appreciate it as well, because they know what
21:09it is to sort of bring life to something that was perhaps just an idea or a bullet point on a white
21:13board. That's going to have its challenges. But those challenges to scale are the point. It means
21:18that you're doing something that's actually living and breathing in the world. So you take
21:22those things on.
21:23And having quite quick impacts from what we saw in your presentation. The impact is probably
21:29quicker than a lot of the results or the manifestation of the work you've done. Probably
21:34quicker than a lot of the brands you're working on. That takes many years.
21:37Exactly. And that was important. We knew that this could not be something that would just live
21:41in beautiful, lofty language, that the proof was in what was happening on the ground. So if we
21:46didn't hit the ground running and be able to say we've gone from saying to doing, then we were
21:51going to lose that trust narrative. So we've been very sincere about that.
21:55Well, once again, fantastic work, guys. Keep it up. Keep going. Keep growing for good. Design for
22:02Good is a wonderful initiative. And we want to see you here again next year, I would hope, with
22:07even bigger and better results and solving the problems that others can't. So thank you very
22:12much, Timann and Ben, Design for Good. So another good thing to announce is that we're having a
22:21coffee break now in which you can savour the delicious coffee, but also have your tattoos.
22:27Design for Good tattoos done at the tattoo parlor. We've just done it. We'll be back shortly, 20
22:31minutes break, for a conversation with the remarkable Tom Dixon. Don't miss it. See you back
22:39in 20 minutes.
22:42Transcribed by https://otter.ai