So this is really what's enabling us to deal with the explosion of data in medicine, together with some really nifty work in terms of algorithms compressing data, extracting the relevant information that people are doing research on.

Tim Brown says the design profession is preoccupied with creating nifty, fashionable objects even as pressing questions like clean water access show it has a bigger role to play. He calls for a shift to local, collaborative, participatory design thinking.