Helsinki Design Lab: an interview with Brian Boyer

Bryan Boyer is the Strategic Design Lead at SITRA, the Finnish Innovation Fund. SITRA is a prominent example of a public institution that has embraced a design approach to exploring social innovation challenges.

Helsinki Design Lab, a platform for advancing strategic design, is illustrative of a changing of the tides. With greater demand for transparency and efficiency, public authorities in Europe can no longer rely on top-down decision-making and are turning to more user-centred processes such as design.

In this interview (pages 10 to 13 of the pdf), we hear about the activities of the Helsinki Design Lab and the new Design Exchange Programme that puts designers in Finnish public authorities.