social innovation camp

Adventure number one is fast approaching!

Tomorrow morning I'll be taking part in the Social Innovation Camp at the Young Foundation in London.

Since starting university I've slowly become less and less interested in the idea of designing packaging for sausages and adverts for the latest TV set. Design and images can have so much impact on the human mind. They can help us to trust or mistrust something, make us want things, believe things, change our opinions. Design can go from making something look pretty to controlling how we live our lives (ie. road signs) So why not use the ability to design for good things? Things that are socially helpful or environmentally responsible?

In the words of the website, the Social Innovation Camp is 'an experiment in using social technology for social change'. Designers will come together with web experts, entrepreneurs, and anyone else who wants to join in to work on projects that have a lot of potential social impact.

www.sicamp.org

I'm not quite sure how I'll get on because, by the looks of things, all the other people attending seem to be professionals already! I'll do an update after I get back on Sunday and we'll see how a mere student got on!

In the meantime, good ol' BBC iPlayer will save the day when I get to watch Doctor Who when I return :P