If politics were non-partisan, the government worked, and policy was inspired by the world's smartest and best-executed ideas, what kind of policies would we pursue?

Whereas past Design Planning Seminars had been tasked with constructing new business models or taking on innovation challenges within a specific industry, our class was handed a much different brief: to create a country (yes, a country!), complete with its own flag, history, geography, and — most importantly — it’s own reframe of national success and a corresponding portfolio of fresh, enlightened policies. This was all to be done within a seven-week timeframe.

The nation that came to birth over those seven weeks was called “Wizendat.” The word evokes the wisdom and prudence that will be needed to navigate the uncharted waters of 21st-century problems — including, but not limited to, ecological devastation, mass industrial carnage, and social factors of greed and xenophobia that tear at the social fabric. However, "Wizendat" also builds upon the word "data," which signifies a potent source for creating equitable, healthy, and human-centered interactions between government and citizenry.

In order to perform the work, the class divided into ten groups. Each group adopted a major American governmental ministry, reframed it in alignment with the basic identity and values of Wizendat, and articulated policy proposals on the basis of available data, scientific insight, and examples of implementation elsewhere in the world. The Department of the Interior became a Department of Environmental Interactions; the Department of Veterans Affairs turned into the Department of Social Benefits, and the Department of Homeland Security morphed into a Ministry of Resiliency and Security — just to name a few. While many of the ideas produced in the work are fanciful or not feasible at this time, we will have succeeded if, in real-world situations, our audience begins to ask itself: "What would Wizendat do?"

To see details of our work, click here.

“After the seven week period in which we labored to make of Wizendat a peace-loving, innovative, and healthy society, we arrived at the somewhat alarming revelation that, as a result of our tech optimism and philanthropic intentions, we had in fact built a massive data state.

This made us pump the brakes considerably to take stock of our work. We knew that, in the real world, state ownership of data is a highly charged and ethically problematic matter, and our class engaged in spirited and thoughtful debate about whether such a data-centric state was in fact a good idea, and what the conditions might be for something like this to work.

At the same time, many of our proposals and insights proved undeniably prescient in the time of COVID-19 (the project was completed shortly before lockdowns commenced): for example, Wizendat placed high social value on caregivers in the economic ecosystem, favored the provision of universal healthcare, and designed programs for collective psychological resiliency.

As it turned out, Wizendat got many things right.”

— Justin Bartkus