Working with wicked problems: Philippe Vandenbroeck at TEDxUHowest

Who is Philippe Vandenbroeck?

Philippe Vandenbroeck (°1965, Leuven) is Partner at shiftN, a network of professionals that helps leading organizations to come to grips with complex strategic challenges and to identify new opportunities for value creation. Philippe was trained as a bio-engineer, philosopher and urban planner. Early in his career he worked as researcher and statistician at Royal Dutch Shell.

Meanwhile he has almost 20 years of experience as systems thinker and scenario planner, focusing on complex, macro-scale strategic business and societal issues such transition to sustainability, management of food, water and energy systems, armed conflict, novel governance systems, challenges in public health and social policies. Key in his approach is the combination of focused and constructive dialogue and disciplined conceptual thinking.

With assignments in more than 30 countries, he has broad international experience. He has been closely involved with the Global Futures Forum, the Global Energy and Environmental Security Ecosystem, and the UK Foresight programme. Philippe guest lectures at various universities, is a regular contributor to the Avicenna Academy for Leadership and is a member of the Board of the University for the Common Good.

In addition, Philippe is a published photographer, a keen cyclist, and an amateur of classical music, good books and conversation.

What is this talk all about?

Working with wicked problems

In our rapidly changing world we seem to be increasingly confronted with intractable problems that escape final solution. Why is that? And what can we do about it? In this talk I will argue that these 'wicked problems' challenge our capacity for systemic thinking and doing. Cookie-cutter approaches won't work. We need to be very clever and sensitive in crafting interventions that mesh systems thinking, dialogue and design into powerful 'learning factories'.

About TED and TEDx

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)