What Innovation Is and Is Not At Design Thinking Ireland With Domhnaill Hernon

1 min pitch for what you are doing now?

I founded and lead a new research area at Nokia Bell Labs where we fuse art and engineering/science to humanize technology. I am responsible for defining the long-term research strategy and selecting our partnerships where we collaborate with artists all over the world.

The goal of the program is to humanize technology such that all technology is developed for the betterment of humanity. One primary area we are investigating is the possibility to augment our current communication modes to introduce emotion sharing so that we can breakdown some of the barriers that exist between people.

How was the last year, what worked well, what didn’t move as quickly as you would have liked?

Last year and this year so far have been very good for this program. We built strong partnerships and had some success in progressing our work and showing it to the world. For example, Wired Magazine published a couple of articles on our work: ‘What Artists Can Teach Us About Making Technology More Human’ and ‘This Gadget Communicates Human Emotions Through Touch’, we presented work at SXSW, we performed some of our work at Times Square as part of the NYC Design week and we released a documentary series with a beatboxer which has been well received.

What are your plans for the future?

We are expanding our collaboration base to have greater diversity and we are building prototypes towards developing new ways for humans to emotionally connect. We have shown our work at large events such as SXSW and recently on Times Square and at Nasdaq.

We hope to maintain our impact via intense collaboration and have the opportunity to showcase our work on a global stage and get the message out there – the message on the benefits of fusing art and technology and how that fusion can open up the innovation opportunity space.

What will you be talking about at this event? (brief taster)

I will discuss what innovation is and is not. I will discuss the approach taken to develop technology today – which in my view is dehumanizing and I will share many examples where fusing art and technology can open true innovation and can lead to technology that betters humanity.

What inspired you to attend Design Thinking Ireland?

Design thinking is a fairly hyped up concept at the moment and everyone is talking about it and stating that they use it. I believe there is great power in the generalized framework that design thinking provides but I worry that through that structured framework we leave a lot of true innovation and creativity on the table.

I would like to share another approach which can augment design thinking where you introduce the divergent thinking of an artist into your R&D process and share examples of where we found great value in that fusion of art and technology

How can people find out more about what you are working on?

The best ways to find out up to date info is via my social media accounts especially on Twitter and LinkedIn and we have a web page that shares info on all of our artistic collaborations here.

Anything else you’d like to add / we should have asked?

One of the great learnings I had this year was through the collaboration with Reeps One on the project We Speak Music. In it, he trains machine learning algorithms how to beatbox and in the process creates a digital AI beatboxing twin.

However, in the process, the AI “Second Self” of Reeps One develops its own patterns and sounds that it gives back to its “creator”. This learning inspired me to double down on our efforts to showcase the creative potential that AI offers up to all of humanity – if this AI system can help someone like Reeps One be more creative can you imagine what it might do for the rest of us? So the proposed new question would be – Tell us about something that changed your perspective in the last year?

Bio

Domhnaill Hernon is an award-winning technology, innovation and creativity executive. He is Head of Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T) which is a new initiative he founded to fuse art and engineering/science to develop solutions that humanize technology.

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at [email protected] or on Twitter: @SimonCocking