Un/Owned

Microplastics. Fashion waste. Urban heat islands. Digital mental health. Despite ample resources and desire, our slowness in tackling problems like this has become its own crisis – both practically and emotionally. These are “unowned problems” – wicked, systemic issues that fall between the cracks in organizations, industries, and types of capital. Worse, unowned problems usually can’t be addressed effectively by the systems that helped to create them. They’re orphans of progress. We’ve founded un/owned, a new kind of innovation lab and strategic consultancy to take responsibility for moving ownerless problems from intractable to tractable. Our specialty is socio-technical problems, where we’re unafraid to reimagine and collaboratively design how human systems could operate differently, and where we bring existing, perhaps overlooked technologies to the table in new ways. Our most important goal: rekindling a sense of agency and hope among millions who currently believe a better future is beyond reach, or “someone else’s responsibility.” We’re trying to engineer a culture of ownership that many more of us can participate in meaningfully, to build the tomorrows we’re excited to live in. Not everyone wants to do this work, but those who can are everywhere. Please follow us on LinkedIn for updates on how you can venture with us into the great unowned.