Iain Kerr

Iain Kerr is a designer, systems thinker, and social entrepreneur, working at the intersection of creativity, ecology, and emergent systems. With a background in Architecture, Design, Art and Philosophy, he brings a unique perspective to issues of social innovation, design and entrepreneurship. His work is focused on inventing novel creative processes to transform seemingly intractable problems into problems worth having. Iain has spent the last two decades developing and teaching unique transformative models of creative processes.

As the co-director of the MIX Lab, Iain has developed new curriculum for using 3D printing to activate design thinking processes far from the normal realms of Industrial Design and Engineering. This innovative curriculum is at the heart of the lab’s certificate program in Innovation Design and Rapid Prototyping, as well as at the forefront of re-imagining Design Thinking as a powerful tool of innovation at all scales of action.

In addition to co-directing the MIX Lab, Iain is a co-founder of the boundary-blurring design consultancy SPURSE which has been at the forefront of ecological research, experimental design, and innovation leadership for the last 15 years. While developing ground-breaking ways to probe, catalyze, disrupt and re-imagine systems both large and small, they have collaborated with communities, organizations, and individuals from the high arctic to the inner cities in Bolivia. Their award winning projects reveal an astonishing range of creative solutions to effecting real change: from restaurants, wetlands, wayfinding apps, urban renewal programs, micro-biology laboratories, cookbooks, buildings, everyday tools and more.

Iain regularly works as a consultant, lecturer and workshop leader on creativity, innovation and design (MIT, Harvard University, Columbia University, Parsons, Yale, CCA, and RISDI). His work, and that of SPURSE, has been exhibited internationally: USA, Poland, Netherlands, Italy, Japan, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Mexico and Bolivia, as well as published in books and journals (Furnitecture, The Interventionists, The Object of Labor, Experimental Geography, The International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Surface, ID, New York Times, Elle, Teme Celeste, Art Papers, Monitor, Interior Design, and Art Journal). Currently Iain is working on a book on Innovation Design, Ecology and Social Entrepreneurship.