Coevolving Innovations – Coevolving Innovations

With a history of Banathy Conversations hosted by the International Federation for Systems Research ( IFSR, 1982-2018 ) and the Creative Systemic Research Platform Institute ( CSRP, 2024, 2025 ), the 139th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario online was scheduled to provide more background on an upcoming in-person event planned for Toronto. Since fall 2025, the reinvigoration of the sLab at OCAD Un...

Already registered for the HICSS-59 ( Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science ) conference in Maui, I signed up for a workshop on “Curriculum Design and Development”.  With a focus on “Bridging the AI Gap: Seamless Integration Across Academia and Industry Sectors”, the organizers offered an opportunity to give a short presentation and join a panel. Three months a...

An invitation for an online presentation to SCiO Finland came from Janne J. Korhonen , who had seen our September 2025 presentation at SysPrac25 in person.  This allowed a more relaxed presentation (without jet lag!) and extended time for discussion.  In addition, this event described some new techniques in sketching out rhythms in an onsite workshop , piloted in the 8 weeks that had elapsed. Zaid...

In fall 2025, Stephen Davies was appointed as the instructor for the “Understanding Systems” SFIN-6011 course in the Strategic Foresight and Innovation program , as part of the Master of Design degree at OCADU.  I”ve been a visiting lecturer in the course since 2017 , and was appointed as a co-instructor in Winter 2020 .  The course has a long history , first taught in 2009, and...

A presentation for the 29th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics challenged me to reduce the research on Systems Changes over the past 6 years for article length.  I proposed multiple articles, but they preferred to extend the maximum submission to 12 pages, plus 5 pages of cited references . The collaboration with the Systems Changes Learning Circle since 2019 has alwa...

For the Understanding Systems course at OCAD University, Zaid Khan was a guest lecture on “Thinking with Time:  A brief introduction to Systems Changes Learning”.  Zaid graduated from this Master’s of Design program in Strategic Foresight and Innovation in 2020, and has a strong appreciation for the perspective of students climbing the learning curve on systems thinking. The pres...

The 129th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario convened to learn about Emergency Management.  Here’s the abstract. Living in a “polycrisis” time can be characterized by an increasing rate, severity, and scale of emergencies. Viruses, war, extreme weather – societies today are facing an increasingly unstable and unpredictable landscape. It’s with this in mind we ask ourselves what insights doe...

At the post-meeting dinner after the February Systems Thinking Ontario session , Anna Chekhman mentioned that she was teaching a third-year course on Designing Future Systems at York University . I offered to give a lecture, and we set a date for a few weeks later. The CSRP Institute 2024 Banathy Conversation validated that the Systems Changes philosophy and theory developed since 2019 is comprehe...

The 128th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario was convened in person.  The classroom was filled with current students, alumni, our regular participants, and a few curious newcomers. Moderated by Zaid Khan , the conversation was sparked by Stephen Davies and myself (David Ing) on the evolving styles in learning systems thinking.  Stephen has been leading SFIN-6011 “Understanding Systems&#8221...

The “Understanding Systems” SFIN-6011 course is a requirement in the master’s program in Strategic Foresight and Innovation at OCADU .   For winter 2025, the class is now led by Stephen Davies , breaking the incremental evolving of content since 2008.  While still on faculty at OCADU, the original course designer Peter H. Jones is now a Distinguished University Professor at Tecno...

In the 1970s, five ways of knowing were established by C. West Churchman in The Design of Inquiring Systtems . In the 1990s, his student Ian Mitroff carried on the tradition and extended that work in The Unbounded Mind .  Now in the 2020s, the technology of Generative AI opens up opportunties to query or request responses through chatbot interfaces, drawing from bodies of codified knowledge in a s...