What is the Wicked7 Project?
Why are we doing this?
Who can join?
How will this information be used?
Who is behind this project?
Who are our partners?
What is the Wicked7 Project?
The Wicked7 Project is an open-innovation project seeking to find ways to address the world’s most urgent problems. Our first step is simply an attempt to map out the interconnections — the causes and effects — of how these complex problems interact with each other. We will also identify the experts and their research in each of the seven areas.
The Wicked7 are:
1. The Death of Nature: the interlinked global crisis of environmental impacts and weather-related events — heat waves, forest fires, flooding, hurricanes, ecosystem degradation and collapse, pollution, and species extinction.
2. Inequality: the various forms of inequality — economic, social, and inequality is a way to measure social and gender inequality. The growing gap between the 1% and the rest of the population creates an unequal and unjust society.
3. Hate & Conflict: the growing intolerance and hate fueled by racism, sexism, and extremism. Includes identity-based or ideological groups which create social unrest and commit acts of terror. Conflict includes militarism, the culture of war, armies, arms-profits, policies, plans, propaganda, prejudices, and rationalizations that lead to lethal group conflict.
4. Power & Corruption: the abuse of power—individual and systemic. Dishonest conduct by those in power or those seeking to influence them. Includes fraud and bribery. Corruption creates a system that governs not for the many, but for the few.
5. Work and Technology: the future of work, data and surveillance. The growing digital divide, digital monopolies and exploitation. Includes the use of media to create false narratives for politics and profit. Robots and automation and the policies to govern the “intelligent” economy.
6. Health and Livelihood: the worldwide challenge of public wellbeing – economic and physical health. Includes the economy, employment, education, and the new skills and capabilities required to “make a living.”
7. Population & Migration: the domestic and global population growth leads to increased conflicts over water, energy, food, open space, transportation, and schooling. Carrying capacity, the number of people, other living organisms, or crops that a region can support without environmental degradation – becomes a key metric for local and national wellbeing. Also includes the growing problem of refugees and asylum seekers, mainly from the “Global South.”
The first challenge — The Death of Nature — has begun. Find out how you can participate.
Why are we doing this?
It’s a way to bring a horizontal approach to innovation, to bring people and ideas who might not, under normal circumstances, connect — with the intention of learning from one another. That’s non-judgmental learning. Ecosystematic learning.
Here are a few points to describe our view:
- A declaration of interdependence: we borrowed Henry Mintzberg’s declaration as a starting point for the project mission
- Horizontal innovation: a horizontal innovation project to bring together people institutions and the next generation to look at solving the world’s most urgent problems
- Mapping the terrain: The first way to do this is to map out the problems and to begin to understand how they are interrelated
- Find a common language: can we adapt the existing vocabulary of Jobs to be Done (JTBD) to address the unmet needs of society (multi-stakeholder JTBD)?
- #allhandsondeck: a call to bring together experts, organizations, movements, and concerned citizens of all ages and backgrounds
- Ecosystematic discovery: We’ve developed a wicked problem mapping methodology which adds a long-overdue systems dimension to root-cause analysis
- Design justice: promote the emerging principles of embedding social justice in the design of our institutions and services
- A sense of urgency: we are running out of time — and we hope this is one way to help catalyze change, driven by ordinary citizens.
Who can join?
Anyone. All we ask is that you show respect and try to be as open-minded as possible. We all have our blinders. Let’s find a way to collaborate, as if our lives depend on it.
How will this information be used?
The information and maps developed will be open for use by all under a CC license. We intend to build a “wicked-pedia” – a map of these interconnected wicked problems and their repercussions.
Who is behind this project?
The project does not have an official structure. It was founded by Christian Sarkar and Philip Kotler, as a spin-off from our Brand Activism work at www.activistbrands.com. We are a collection of individuals and institutions collaborating to learn more about how wicked problems can be solved. Learn more about us.
Who are our partners?
Organizations interested in learning more about wicked problems and how they can be solved. Contact us to learn more.
Drop us a line at info@wicked7.org