If you only have little time, this is what my Twitter [english/german] says:
Transformation agent. Vision builder & story teller. Designer, cynic, optimist. Loves vegan burgers & glowing things.
Hi, Iām Arved.
I grew up and live in Germany. When I was a child, I wanted to become an Inventor. I liked to build mechanisms and have all kinds of ideas. When I learned about carbon emissions I decided my first car will be an electric one. Now Iām 27, know about carsharing and the upcoming robotic cars, and donāt think Iāll ever own one.
The aforesaid Interests in having Ideas and creating led me to study industrial design. I finished the Bachelor with a coral science project and skills in process analysis, conception, crafting, prototyping and 3D-printing and various design techniques. I made a small Website with these projects.
Right now, apart from listening to many many of Science Fiction audiobooks, Iām involved in two startup-ish projects;
-growing a vegan leather alternative through microorganisms
-creating sense and jobs for homeless by co-creating and producing outdoor gear from industry leftovers.
These are examples of how I want to be a change agent for the transformation of society, towards sustainable ways of living. Others can be found in University. For learning how to do theses things better, Iām studying the Transformation Design Master at HBK Braunschweig. Whenever I feel like it, I make a blog post about this. In the last two semesters I was mostly interested in two areas, and can give an example each;
co-creating shared visions for preferred futures
Last semester, I worked out a workshop method. It gives Civic Designers (here: everyone making decisions that affect a group of other people) an understanding of the stakeholders needs, wants and fears. It also sensitizes the stakeholders for their options and their role in choosing between them.
storytelling
In the first Semester, we envisioned post-fossil mobility concepts for a rural region right next to the Volkswagen HQ & factorys. My Group ended up with a fake version of the large german news magazine DER SPIEGEL, dated 2050. This magazine tells the story of how the region transformed into a great example for all kinds of bicycle mobility, to which people from all over the world come to learn. It does this by showing (fake) blog articles and letters from inhabitants as well as telling in detail about various small projects we imagined. When we were at the regionās parliament, we had one conservative stating the impossibility of our ideas, and several others from all different partys pronouncing their liking of thinking in visions instead of small day-to-day decisions. This was a great experience, and maybe more things will come that way.
But I canāt wait.
This Semester now, I and two other students cooperate with someone who bought an old lime plant and wants to transform it to a center for traditional crafts, permaculture, transdisciplinary projects and general happiness. Heās working on this for years, and weād like to boost this by creating some kind of event to grow the community. At the moment, we are working on a concept for the event and its communication.
this leads me to the last point; why I am here
Iām not only looking for Inspiration for the current project, Iād love to become part of a network of like-minded-professionals. Also, as the end of my studies approaches, Iām trying to find out where I can do all these things I love and make a living from it, without selling my soul. So when I met @susa at the dgtf design conference last weekend, and she told me about this network, I was eager to join
Thats it for now. Thanks for reading. Iām agog what happens next.
they seem quit in line with what people do around here, or as an industrial designer, you can join Matthias in designing the 