DfG 
Starting to dance with systems During the past two sessions of the DfG course we deepened our understanding of Empathic Design methodologies with practical exercises led by design researcher Juha Kronqvist. Jane Fulton Suri from IDEO defines design empathy as “The ability to step into someone else’s shoes and to understand them through their experiences” (in Koskinen, … Read more
This blog post reports on work-in-progress within the DfG course! The post is written by one of the two groups dealing with the Ministry of Environment’s brief on ‘Energy and maintenance in Finnish housing companies’. The group includes Ekaterina Perfilyeva from Aalto’s MA in Creative Sustainability (Business) program, Jutta Menestrina from Aalto’s MA in Creative Sustainability (Design) … Read more
Design for Government (DfG) celebrates the New Year recognising great achievements over 2015 – ‘Design for Government: Human-centric Governance Through Experiments’, which we produced with Demos Helsinki for the Finnish Prime Minister’s office. From Aalto, the 2015 DfG course served as an example of what a part of the proposed process might unfold, the course … Read more
Welcome Ramia Mazé to the Design for Government faculty! Ramia has started at Aalto in August 2015 as ‘Professor of New Frontiers in Design’, in which her focus is on the expanding roles of design in society – including roles in governance, social innovation and sustainable development. DfG was initiated and established in 2013 by Seungho … Read more
Are you a civil servant interested in how design can be applied to innovate in policy design? Are you a student interested in designing with the public sector and government? Design For Government (DfG, MUO-E8012) is a 10-ECTS advanced studio course in Aalto University’s Creative Sustainability master’s programme. DfG develops design addressing the complex challenges of … Read more
During the Helsinki Design Week 2015, we have organised a workshop inviting 11 designers and 10 civil servants to Valtimo, a joint working space of the ministries, early in the morning of September 10th. The aim of the day was to create trust and find tools for the ministries’ civil servants and designers’ to start working … Read more
Journalist Hannu Pöppönen interviewed the founders of DfG in the latest issue of Ornamo, the magazine of the Finnish Association of Designers with the same name. The article’s topic was “The design process as an opportunity to expand”, and DfG was featured as one example. Among design work, design agencies offer more and more expert … Read more
Design for Government contributed to an event, Design Driven Society, hosted by Design Driven City and Design Europe during the Helsinki Design Week at L3 building in Jätkäsaari on September 9th. The day started with a keynote on agile and participatory city development from Anthony Engi Meacock, an urban and architectural designer and co-founder of … Read more
Editor’s note: The final Show took place on May 26, 2015 at Säätytalo. In this post, we are sharing the final concepts of Design for Government 2015 in video. You can also see the event with photos in this previous post. Introduction Sirpa Kekkonen, Head of the Government Strategy Secretariat of the Prime Minister’s Office … Read more
Thank you so much for coming to DfG 2015 Final Show! It was a great success thanks to the hard-working students as well as the enthusiastic audience including some 40 civil servants. Altogether some 180 guests joined us at Säätytalo, and the feedback and the discussion were extremely fruitful. We will share all the presentations … Read more