Exploring New Technology’s Meaning
for a Sustainable Future
via Collaborative Science-Fiction
Prototyping: A Novel Method
for the Engineering Curriculum
Johanna Kleinen and Lisa Kurz
1 Introduction
Our society is increasingly facing the challenges of a volatile, uncertain, complex
and ambiguous world (Mack et al. Mack and Khare 2016) with wicked problems
(Rittel and Webber 1973). This new reality is characterized by economic, ecological
and social interdependencies, oftentimes making it hard to see how one’s own actions
can make an impact towards a desirable future. Issues like climate change seem too
complicated, the individual too powerless and knowledge barriers too high for any
single person’s engagement to make a difference.
To adapt and progress as a society, we often rely on new technology, without
realizing that the technology available to us is not fixed to a default by nature,
but a product of human engineers. It is up to them to devise effective solutions to
the right problems without creating new ones. This increasingly necessitates multidimensional solutions, designed to fit the systems and human needs they interface.
To affect a future our society can thrive in, these also need to be sustainable and work
in alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Universities today educate the engineers who will develop the technologies available to build our future. How can they teach the future-oriented, collaborative and
interconnected way of thinking and working needed to develop sustainable solutions?
How can they equip these individuals with tools and skills tailored to the entangled
J. Kleinen (B)
Mercedes-Benz AG, ARENA2036 Research Campus, Pfaffenwaldring 19, 70569 Stuttgart,
Germany
e-mail: johanna_maria.kleinen@daimler.com
L. Kurz
Institute for Human Factors and Technology Management IAT, Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial
Engineering IAO, University of Stuttgart, Nobelstr. 12, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
e-mail: lisa.kurz@iat.uni-stuttgart.de; lisa.kurz@iao.fraunhofer.de
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Universities, Sustainability and Society: Supporting
the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, World Sustainability Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63399-8_22
335
for a Sustainable Future
via Collaborative Science-Fiction
Prototyping: A Novel Method
for the Engineering Curriculum
Johanna Kleinen and Lisa Kurz
1 Introduction
Our society is increasingly facing the challenges of a volatile, uncertain, complex
and ambiguous world (Mack et al. Mack and Khare 2016) with wicked problems
(Rittel and Webber 1973). This new reality is characterized by economic, ecological
and social interdependencies, oftentimes making it hard to see how one’s own actions
can make an impact towards a desirable future. Issues like climate change seem too
complicated, the individual too powerless and knowledge barriers too high for any
single person’s engagement to make a difference.
To adapt and progress as a society, we often rely on new technology, without
realizing that the technology available to us is not fixed to a default by nature,
but a product of human engineers. It is up to them to devise effective solutions to
the right problems without creating new ones. This increasingly necessitates multidimensional solutions, designed to fit the systems and human needs they interface.
To affect a future our society can thrive in, these also need to be sustainable and work
in alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Universities today educate the engineers who will develop the technologies available to build our future. How can they teach the future-oriented, collaborative and
interconnected way of thinking and working needed to develop sustainable solutions?
How can they equip these individuals with tools and skills tailored to the entangled
J. Kleinen (B)
Mercedes-Benz AG, ARENA2036 Research Campus, Pfaffenwaldring 19, 70569 Stuttgart,
Germany
e-mail: johanna_maria.kleinen@daimler.com
L. Kurz
Institute for Human Factors and Technology Management IAT, Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial
Engineering IAO, University of Stuttgart, Nobelstr. 12, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
e-mail: lisa.kurz@iat.uni-stuttgart.de; lisa.kurz@iao.fraunhofer.de
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Universities, Sustainability and Society: Supporting
the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, World Sustainability Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63399-8_22
335