Save the Date: SDSI Open #3 – “Futures in Place: Designing with Systems, Communities, and Care”

Friday, 20 June 2025

Adatu Fabrika, Kuldīga, Latvia, address: Kalpaka iela 4, Kuldīga

Live on YouTube: Watch here

Time: 14:00 – 18:00 EEST

Free and open to all

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Now in its third edition, SDSI Open is the flagship hybrid conference of the Erasmus Mundus Master’s programme in Service Design Strategies and Innovations (SDSI). Held annually in the vibrant town of Kuldīga, Latvia—and livestreamed worldwide—this half-day event brings together a diverse community of designers, civil servants, students, educators, and community members to explore how design can shape just, sustainable, and meaningful futures.

This year’s theme, “Futures in Place: Designing with Systems, Communities, and Care,” invites us to reflect on how futures thinking and systems-oriented design can help us navigate complexity, challenge systemic blind spots, and imagine new possibilities grounded in context and care.

What to Expect:

Engage with talks and discussions around:

• Grounded, context-based design practices
• Systemic blind spots and power dynamics
• Radical future imaginaries—from rural towns to Martian colonies
• Tools for prototyping regenerative futures

Whether you’re a design practitioner, policymaker, student, educator, industry partner, or simply curious about creating better futures—you are warmly invited to join us in person or online.

Speakers & Presentations

• Jānis Ķīnasts – Head of the Innovation Lab, State Chancellery of Latvia
  “The Future Arrives Where You Dig”
• Alessandra Molderings-Enriconi – Associate Service Design Director, denkwerk
  “How Did We Get Here, and How Do We Leave? A Designer’s Guide to Changing the World”
• Alicia Shao – Service Designer; Lecturer at Köln International School of Design & L’École de Design Nantes Atlantique; Board Member, Design Matters Denmark
  “Out of This World: Designing Futures from Mars to Earth”
• Zeynep Falay von Flittner – Founder, Falay Transition Design
  “Falay’s Framework for Futures Prototyping”
• Kuldīga 2050 Summer School Group
  “Kuldīga’s Desirable Futures”
• SDSI Student Cohort 2024–2026
  Reflections on Futures in Place

Let’s imagine and design not just for the future, but from it—together. With awareness, creativity, and care.

Missed the earlier editions?
Catch up on previous SDSI Open events on our YouTube channel.

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