Louise received a first class undergraduate degree in Industrial Design from Brunel University where she won the AOL Broadband Innovative Award for her ‘Anti-Theft Handbag’ design in 2004. Discovering project management was a core strength she soon began to use it for running successful design projects. This was proved while working at Design Bridge, London, where Louise managed ‘The Safe Pint Glass’ project, one of the Design Council’s Design Out Crime challenge winners in 2010.
Realising she felt it was time to work in a field with more social relevance, Louise completed a Masters in Design For Development at Kingston University. She developed a real passion for using design thinking, design craft and organisation skills to deliver sustainable solutions, where possible for social good.
Louise now works as a social innovator and design researcher and enjoys using her design skills in non-traditional ways to help solve problems. Her passion for helping communities become more sustainable, helping people feel empowered and changing behaviours for the better is shown through her work with a number of social ventures and behaviour change projects.
Louise’s strengths are gaining empathy through observation, engaging with stakeholders (at all levels), facilitation, design thinking, collaboration, being an activist for the social innovation movement and networking.
Past Projects include:
The People’s Kitchen ‘Food for the people by the people’
Grouple ‘Collaborative caring’
Current Projects include:
Ecoinomy ‘making the most of using less’
My Fail Tale ‘making failure positive’
iBehave ‘iBehave’
For more information on Louise’s work experience, please look at her LinkedIn profile.
Louise Wilson 
Hey,
Love your blog, just read that paper on consumerism vs. sustainability too. Found you through IDEO on your submisison about the food transparency app- I have the money, time and wherewith all to make the app a reality. I have been working on a similar idea. A sort of wikipedia for each product on the shelf- people can scan and access organized data about all of their food including locations. knowncontroversy with the company, images/comments from employees, and allow a rating system to compare and contrast certain products according to sustainability, transparency, nutrition. . . favoring organic/local/transparent companies.
that is. . . let me know if you want to discuss and get going- it is a possibility and the people (kids) need it!
Hi Josh, good to hear from you. Thank you for your comments and enthusiasm for the IDEO concept. Your online comments have been really helpful.
I’d love to discuss it in more detail – email address?
Hi Louise,
I’m interested in doing Design for a living i.e. something I do as a job and as a passion. I also like the idea of contributing towards sustainability.
Trouble is I’m overwhelmed by where to start. My initial ideas was to start reading books to boost knowledge, and to network among people who are interested in the same thing. OpenIDEO seems like a good place to start, however your work seems to be exactly what I’d like to do, so perhaps you can give me some pointers? I’ve got the interest, and I believe the natural aptitude, but would like some guidance. Any tips?
Cheers,
Ben.
Hi Ben
That’s a great question but also a tough one 😉 I love hearing of new people that want to use their design to help our future. I suggest reading the books I have listed in my ‘recommended reading list’ and contributing to the OpenIDEO platform to get a feel for the industry and nature of the work being done.
Where are you based? These types of discussions are often better over a cup of coffee!
Louise