Federico Casalegno | The Future of Interaction | Talks at Google

Federico Casalegno discusses the evolution of interaction to date, including virtual reality, augmented reality, digital twins, and ambient computing, among others. He presents ideas about the future of interaction—synthetic realities—and what will be required to achieve it.

What will the future of interaction look like? We are at an inflection point, from both a tech and human-centered design perspective, and are suddenly witnessing a dramatic change in the way we think about and use technology. This will require that we shift our thinking beyond interaction with a single device to interaction with a constellation of devices where the computer exists and helps from the background.

Federico is Executive Vice President of Design at Samsung Electronics. He heads the Samsung Design Innovation Center (SDIC) in San Francisco, CA, Next-Generation Experience Planning Team in Seoul, and Experience and Insights teams within Samsung Research. He leads global multidisciplinary teams in the USA, Asia and Europe to design new generation of experiences and envision future products. As a designer, innovator, and social scientist, he focuses on the impact of networked digital technologies on human behavior and society, and designs products, services and meaningful experiences to improves people’s lives.

Before joining Samsung, Federico was an Associate Professor of the Practice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, teaching at MIT and MIT Media Lab. He also founded and directed the MIT Design Lab and the MIT Mobile Experience Lab. He previously worked at Motorola, Inc. and Philips Design, envisioning and creating innovative product experiences. He has been awarded honorary professorships at the Glasgow School of Art, University of Glasgow and the Jiangnan University School of Design in Wuxi, China. He has published several scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, along with books and articles, and he has won several awards for his design and innovation work.
Federico earned the PhD degree in Sociology of Culture and Communication from the Sorbonne University, Paris V, with a focus on mediated communication and social interaction in networked communities and smart cities.

Moderated by Ivan Poupyrev.