Worldbuilding and mandala as a tool for co-speculating on the healthcare domain in 2050

Abstract

Covid-19 pandemic that demanded distancing from social life had a drastic impact on our societal systems from economy to education but especially healthcare, which became the center of attention in 2020. While making gaps in the social systems visible, these times have reminded us the significance of exploring possible futures, scenarios and how design methods can help co-speculating on possible futures. With a motivation to co-speculate on possible futures with the healthcare domain experts, discuss how 2020 might effect the world in general and reflect back on the future of the healthcare domain based on these speculations, we have started a series of worldbuilding workshops. Here in this paper, we are sharing the lessons learned through the first three workshops conducted in this long term project, where we worked with 8 domain experts, used design fiction stories and the worldbuilding mandala tool to co-speculate on possible futures of 2030, 2040, and finally 2050. This paper shares insights regarding the methods used and how they helped the co-speculation process, but not the implications regarding healthcare sector.