1. ThingTank
IdeasLab @ CEI
MIT SkolTech Initiative
Neil Rubens (UEC,Tokyo)
Elisa Giacardi (TU Delft)
Chris Speed (Edinburgh)
2. $200Cost $50 $5 $0.01
Traditional Product Development
n focus on improving some of the aspects:
Innovation
n doing something different rather than doing the same thing
better
n combining concepts from different realms
that would not normally be put together
13. Product Development: Future
n & things
n 1 designer, 100’s of contributors, millions of things
designer
community
things
n Internet of Things
n soon more data will be produced by things
than humans (Gartner)
happilab
15. Solution
n Use traditional (external) sensors: i.e. camera/photos, etc.
millions of photos are available online
16. n Use AI to identify different usages
Solution
different
17. Bottom-up AI-assisted Product Innovation
n use AI to find different usages of things
n to collaborate with community & designers
n on product innovation
innovation
designer
community
things
19. Deviation
n Object is used for a different purpose (than originally intended)
n Object is not modified
20. Hybridization
n The object is used for a different purpose than originally intended,
however in order to perform additional function the object is modified.
24. Property Adaptation
n new object adopts some of the desirable properties of the original object
n usage is changed
25. simple fork inspired many products
Innovationn doing something different
n combining concepts from different realms
that would not normally be put together
what if we innovate based on other
products:
26. Things <-> Usages
n Things -> Usages
n e.g. different usages of fork
n Things <- Usages
n e.g. different approaches to storage
27. Which Innovation resulted in:
n 320% rise in bilateral trade; during the first 5 years of
adoption
n By comparison, a bilateral free-trade agreement raised trade by:
45% over 20 years
(Economist)
35. Project Goals
n Development of AI-assisted platform for discovery of
innovative links between things <-> usages
n Construction of large-scale usage database
n Development of innovative products and approaches
36. Benefits
n Product Innovation
n Long-tail Manufacturing
n allow manufacturers to create a variety of new products
n Educational
n Teaching tool for innovation & creativity
n Environmental
n reuse, multi-purpose
n more project usages are yet to be discovered …