The wealth of ideas

Design ideation is often seen as the endeavour of an individual, as reflected in words like inventor and innovator, design awards, or intellectual property rights. But when human kind is faced with global and serious challenges, from air and water pollution to food production and population growth, there's a case to be made for ideas to be generated and developed through collaboration and partnership rather than competition and single ownership. An approach to innovation whereby ideas are shared more widely freed from constraints of copyright - a  commonwealth of ideas. Or, as voiced by the scientist Stephen Hawking: 'We will need to adapt, rethink, refocus and change some of our fundamental assumptions about what we mean by wealth, by possessions, by mine and yours. Just like children, we will have to learn to share'.