Emerging Technologies

Explore the intersections of technological innovation, ethics, and social impact.

The Emerging Technologies Issue explores the intersection of technological innovation, social change, and meaningful impact. This edition, the first under the new magazine name, Unfold (formerly Design Museum Magazine), dives into technology’s potential to shape a more inclusive and sustainable future with critical topics such as responsible tech, climate tech, and digital accessibility, offering insights into how EmTech can and should be addressing societal challenges. 

“We are participating in real time in another massive shift, this time brought by rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) coupled with wide-scale data collection and analysis and increasingly connected networks. The same technologies that are accelerating significant advances in healthcare, agriculture, and security are also speeding up surveillance and predatory capitalist practices, and opening us up to identity and monetary theft via regularly occurring data breaches“

— Melissa Casburn, From the Editor.

The Emerging Technologies Issue features:

• Insights from Guest Editor and VP of Design at Coforma, Melissa Casburn, on the issue’s contributions from a multi-generational group of writers;
• Snapshots from our community brainstorm on the meaning of emerging technologies;
• A feature on AI’s impact on design and the creative landscape by Charles Austen Angell, CEO of Modern Edge; 
• A profile on tech start-up Spawning, and their mission to enable artists and creatives greater control in a AI economy; 
• How young people, growing up on a digital diet, are shaping a future for learning and collaboration, by Sunand Bhattacharya, Associate Vice Provost, Design & Innovation Strategy, Boston College; 
• An exploration by Lew Epstein, Founder/CEO of Lot21, on climate tech and designing for a warming world;
• A thought experiment by design advocate and author, Amber Case, on the true cost of fast fashion;
• A profile on mass surveillance and the evoluation of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), by journalist Justin R. Wolf; 
• How to build a responsible tech ecosystem with All Tech is Human, written by Hannah Kennedy, Senior PR Coordinator at ZGF Architects; 
• Design Together Activity: Storytelling Through Movement with Ellice Patterson from Abilities Dance Boston; 
• A primer on digital accessibility, including criteria by the Web Content Accessibilities Guidelines (WCAG), by accessibility advocate Evan Burnett; 
• A conversation with Derek Featherstone, VP Accessibility and Inclusive Design, and Maria Villafranca, Executive Director, CoDesign Collaborative on disability justice, tech, and advocacy.

Purchase The Emerging Technologies Issue and/or subscribe to Unfold to receive stories about creative thought leaders who are using design to change the world.