What connects electric bikes, mobility systems, high-end wellbeing devices and robotics? 

For Joachim, it’s the same mission: design technology that feels intuitive, human, and full of possibility. 

With a career spanning Brussels, Copenhagen and London, and now as co-founder of FutureWave, Joachim has spent the past six years building a 25-strong design and engineering studio working across mobility, consumer tech and deep electronics. From shaping early concepts for startup disruptors to helping global brands reimagine their five-to-ten-year vision, his work sits at the intersection of creativity, engineering, and intuition.  

In this episode of Why Design, Joachim joins host Chris Whyte to explore what happens when designers and engineers stop working in silos and start behaving like one organism. Together they unpack his “human generative design” philosophy, why intuition still matters in a world obsessed with data, and how FutureWave is helping clients design experiences fit for the next decade of hardware.  

Don’t just listen. Go beyond the podcast. 

Join the Why Design community → teamkodu.com/events 

💡 What You’ll Learn 

🧠 Why great design blends poetry and industry, and why Joachim believes designers act as the “glue” between disciplines. 

🌍 How FutureWave breaks hardware silos to deliver desirability, feasibility and viability in one loop. 

🔁 What “human generative design” looks like, and why iteration and cross-functional filtering beats isolated brainstorming. 

🚲 Lessons from working with startups vs. corporates from rapid prototyping to de-risking long-term innovation. 

🚆 Where hardware is heading from mobility transformation to miniaturised wellbeing tech and robotics. 

💭 Why intuition still matters in a world dominated by metrics, risk models and strategy decks. 

💬 Memorable Quotes 

“Designers are never experts of anything… but they’re the glue.” 

“Intuition helps you build dreams, strategy and engineering help you de-risk them.” 

“You need diversity of minds to build a great product. It works like an organism.” 

“Sometimes the market doesn’t know what it wants until you show it the experience.” 

“The future of hardware is invisible tech; seamless, human, and meaningful.” 

🔗 Resources & Links 

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube & Amazon → whydesign.club 

👥 Join the Why Design community → teamkodu.com/events 

🔗 Connect with Joachim → https://www.linkedin.com/in/joachim-froment-a1920456/ 

🌐 FutureWave → https://www.futurewave.eu/ 

📸 Instagram → @whydesignxkodu 

🎥 Full episodes → YouTube.com/@whydesignpod 

🔗 Follow Chris Whyte → linkedin.com/in/mrchriswhyte 

About the Episode 

Why Design is powered by Kodu, a specialist recruitment partner for the hardware and product-development industry. 

Through candid conversations with designers, engineers, and creative leaders, we explore not just what they build, but why they build it; the belief, doubt, and persistence behind meaningful innovation. 

About Kodu 

Why Design is produced by Kodu, a recruitment partner for ambitious hardware brands, design consultancies, and product start-ups. 

We help founders and teams hire top talent across industrial design, mechanical engineering, and product leadership. 

🔗 Learn more → teamkodu.com 

So, Joachim welcome to Why Design. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Thank you Chris, thanks for the invitation.

You're very welcome. that we've been speaking for a little while now. And in the time that I've got to know you obviously you've built up this incredible and very interesting career spanning Brussels, Copenhagen and London. And then over the last five or six years or so, co-founding FutureWave, design agency, design and engineering agency, which is now 25 strong, I believe. The business works on anything from electric bikes and cars to furniture.

Yeah, exactly.

lighting and award-winning IoT devices. In terms of awards, you've picked up IF Award, is RadoStar, the Boli Air and the CS Innovation, amongst many others, I presume. You educated or you studied masters at the RCA and did your bachelor's at, is it La Cumbria? I pronounced that right, yeah, in Brussels. Awesome.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, in Belgium, yeah, in Brussels, exactly.

So hopefully that short intro is on your justice. Feel free to correct me if I've got any of those details wrong, that gives listeners a sense of what they're getting into. Yeah.

Sort of right, yeah. We focused a little bit more on tech products, so consumer electronics, healthcare, transportation mobility. I would say that lighting furniture is a bit aside, is a bit more something I was doing before as a designer. yeah, FutureWave is more focusing on tech hardware projects. exactly.

Awesome. Yeah, we've kind of we've blended you and the business together, which is often the case, but founding a business, isn't it kind of where where the business ends and you start or vice versa is a bit of a blurred line there. But thank you for clearing that up. So we're to dive in now. Before we get into the topics that we discussed, we'd cover. I always ask my guests this is the name of the podcast. Why design? What drew you into industrial design all those years ago?

Yeah.

Yeah, good question. Interesting. It's always interesting to have a little bit of perspective on yourself. probably I grew up in a family where art architecture was predominant. I guess, yeah, it spoke to me quite directly to create things, to draw most of the time back then.

But on the other side, I think I had also like a bit more of this kind of more scientific approach or I loved science and it is something I was doing when I was quite young at a young age. I was inventing things, doing small inventions of trains or whatever boats, whatever. And I drew them and I use my skills as a drawer to do that and to...

And then, so yeah, I was not aware of the word of design at that time, I guess when you're 12. But yeah, so my dad sort of told me there was probably a path I should take there. So I started then industrial design and at La Combe in Brussels. And this is where I started. And I think that since I had quite an...

interest for things that were so different. On one side, really inventing this engineering aspect of what could help future generations. What should we invent? There was always a purpose and I felt like there was a purpose in there for me. And on the other side, I think art was a way of expressing myself.

And both together led me to a philosophy in design where I really try to align these two worlds, poetry and industry, engineering and design, creativity and science. These are things that are very sensitive, that I really like, that I like to dive into.

Mm-hmm.

Polar opposites,

This is a...

OK. And what's the industrial design scene like in Brussels or Belgium as a whole?

What is like, would say yeah, there are quite some quite good schools. I would say it's a small country for sure. I think that the hardware segment of sector is not super developed. There are other bigger businesses in Belgium obviously. I would say that industrial design as itself has...

doesn't have the same reputation that you would have in UK, that you would have in Scandinavian countries, in Germany. But I think there's, I mean, obviously there's a lot of collectible design, there's a lot of other form of design practice that are quite renowned in Belgium. But industrial design as itself, I think, is,

has a lot of potential, has a lot of talents, but because of a small country and the ecosystem, having fewer larger companies in hardware products. It is maybe a bit less developed than in other bigger countries where, yeah, I would say so.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. mean, it's tempting to dive into, you know, one of the topics I've got lined up for later on here. So I'll save that. know, just briefly, location from my side of things is always the biggest barrier to finding kind of the perfect and I say that in air quotes for the benefit of anyone listening, you know, perfect talent, perfect candidate, because there's no such thing. you know, no matter where you're based,

Hmm.

whether it's central London or Brussels, there's only a finite amount of people that are either in that area or want to work in that area. do you find when you've been hiring for FutureWave, you've had to look further afield or you've had to entice people to either move to Brussels or just completely adopt more flexible practices?

Yeah, I think it's also because, you know, we had to open up like an international market as well. we, everything is in English, you know, like we, most of the time we work with, yeah, foreigners and with international companies. So having a team that is quite international is not, obviously, can make sense.

Yeah, this is something that we adopt for us that the most important is to be sure that we have a right person working in a field that he likes, that he enjoy also. I think it's super important for us because as you mentioned, we blend engineers, creative strategists, a lot of different disciplines. And I think it's quite different when you work with people that are so different from you.

And you need to have an open mind. need, know, engineers have to learn to be able to work with designers and this versa. And this is an exercise that is not that common. I mean, that everybody needs to do. I mean, the larger company are doing, but we noticed that there's a lot of silos in these companies. And this is what we're trying to break a little bit. So because of that,

It is something that is quite important. It's this kind of culture of the company, a culture within FutureWave where we need to stay quite open-minded regarding each other's skills, competences, sector, innovations. These are very important because they nourish a lot of the work you're going to do and it's going to help also to work better together.

So we are much stronger altogether, obviously, than alone, especially in an ecosystem with hardware. think it's when you design a product, as we already discussed together, it's a whole ecosystem you need to be aware of. And for one person, can be a lot to understand and to have a holistic, a fully holistic approach. I think the designer mentality has a bit of this kind of approach by itself, of course, but

But he is not an expert in many, you know, we often said that the designer is never an expert of anything, know, but he's, but it's sort of interesting because it's allowing him to be a bit of a glue or to, you know, to create a bit of these kind of these links. But at the same time, yeah, that's why it's super important to also have a lot of different variety of experts that are going to complement the project.

Yeah.

itself. So yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense to have a large variety of skills and conversances, but also a large variety of culture.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. I know we've spoken about obviously relying on a, or utilizing a freelance network, you know, to support projects. But I'm guessing then from what you're saying, the vast majority of your team are based in the studio in Brussels, you know, so you can build that culture.

Most of them, yeah, most of them. But we came to realize that more and more we need a network of freelancers that will embrace the same mentality. think the culture can still be shared externally. This is not really a problem. But I guess that for a long time we wanted to build that culture before. And so it was sort of important to be a bit more...

Mm-hmm.

immersive and and and to have more and to have people like that are yeah within the team close to the team.

Yeah, it's much easier, know, in my opinion, if you've got that core team that, you know, they're working together, like 40 plus hours a week to build that culture, and then they become, if they believe in that culture as well, they're champions of it. So when you're engaging with external partners or freelancers, it's easier to disseminate that. Yeah, so.

Totally. I think that's a good point. As I mentioned, experts are essential to nourish the work you're going to do. You're going to find more easily your experts with pool of freelancers that are very good in what they do. The only thing that matters in that selection is to be sure that if there's a fit, if the values and the way of working and the culture is...

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

is is attuned because you know they will have to work together with our team or with potentially other experts. So yeah.

Yeah, we could do yeah, you get that wrong. And it could be, you know, the opportunity costs is, you know, they disrupt things that you don't don't see straight away. It just causes cracks that appear later down the line, you know, in terms of frustrations, if you if it's not, it's not right from from day one. So yeah, interesting. So apologies, we skipped ahead slightly to one of the topics. We're only one question and I've already gone off my script here. But

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right.

Sorry.

Well, look, we've already touched on some of the culture, some of the things that you build in, you know, kind of getting a sense of your values and whatnot with with future wave. But, you know, for those who are listening or watching that don't know who future wave is, perhaps you could talk us through, know, give it give us the elevator pitch of a future wave, and then maybe take us back to the start. How did it come about? Because you've five and a bit years now. So started in lockdown.

But rather than me put words in your mouth, you could tell us about FutureWave.

second.

Yeah, sure. Yes, so I came back from Copenhagen. So was working in Copenhagen. I came back so a bit more than six years ago and to launch with my partner, two other partners actually. So we are three and they were in the tech field. So they were tech engineers working at ESA, but also at Nokia. So they were

Yeah, working on very deep tech stuff. And I was working on mobility projects, furniture lighting, a lot of different things. So it was very different, but we saw a match mainly because like I mentioned before, the silos within companies, something we noticed. I realized when I was working, for example, with a bike,

Mm-hmm.

brand, I was designing certain things, I was in conversation with the engineers and I think it was too familiar, like the communication also was too brittle. So lack of communication, lack of synergies, and I think a lot of rework on both sides. And I think this is our things that...

that cost a lot of money for companies that, you know, we, saw an opportunity there to, to maybe, bring another way of, of, of doing and making, creating objects and more tech objects, obviously, because it was this link with the tech guys. So, yeah, we started five, a bit more than five years ago in Brussels, as I mentioned by telling you, and without any fundings, we quickly,

up and had some first clients. worked with Cowboy, Electric Bikes and some startups at the beginning. That was, I guess, the start. then bit by bit, we signed with bigger clients with larger companies like Sony, Renault and others. And I think these are very different ways of working, obviously.

But we came to realize that for larger companies, work much more on innovation, on really building the vision in five, 10 years, really speculative design and what is the experience of tech products in five to 10 years. And so prototyping, early stage R &D potentially, but normally not. That's something they do internally.

And then for startups, this is something we from concept to a fully built product that can be delivered on the market depending on how the team is built in the startup and where they need your help or not. But it's from A to Z, of one stop service. Yeah, that's a bit, and so yeah.

Bit by bit, I think we collect different portfolio of clients.

Yeah, you've got a great portfolio. I'm just reading here, know, Adidas, Nokia, Decathlon, Samsung, Cowboy. Yeah, I'm guessing they were a startup when you started working with them, but they're much more widely known now. How do you balance things now? Because you mentioned you still work with startups. A lot of design agencies that I speak to, the founders, the owners of those companies are...

Mm-hmm.

you know, they enjoy working with startups, but it can be, you know, obviously much smaller projects in terms of scale, in terms of commitment and cash, you know, so you get the, the, the buzz of helping her and the reward of helping a entrepreneur kind of realize their vision, but it doesn't, it's very difficult to scale that. So two questions really then. So when, when, and how did you pick up your first kind of

Yeah.

large account, know, and how did that feel? And then how do you strike that balance now between kind of supporting the startups, but also not taking your eye off the big corporate accounts?

Hmm. Hard question because like, think that I had already some contacts with Adidas even before starting at, and then some other larger companies, but I guess the, after one year we had a first larger contracts. I think, I think it's, it's, but I think significantly with larger projects because you know, you can have,

big companies working with you, but you know, like when it's become a bit more significant in terms of budget and in terms of redundancy of work, know, we're like, and I think, yeah, I would say that the shift came more last year where we decided to move more towards larger companies. Startups, think, I think on some point, on some level, we really enjoy to work with startup because it's new ideas.

fresh field, you know, it's something you can build from scratch. Obviously, the problem is that you have a lot of budget limitation, and especially in Belgium. This is one of the things that we also decided to do since last year is to shift from small startups companies based in Belgium to larger startups based internationally.

I think in Belgium, but it learned us something quite, it's like in this complex startup environment in Belgium where budgets are totally, I would say absurd. There's nothing really that is built for hardware startups in Belgium. Really the fundraise is just ridiculous.

If you want to do a bike, if you, don't know, it's super hard to even raise more than, than 100 or 200 K. It makes no sense. mean, how is, are you going to build your company base? mean, with, so, so I think that, that on that aspect, it, it learned us to, be quite agile in a way we work to work step by step, uh, to iterate very fast, to be quite, um, uh, flexible also.

and to be competitive. That is something that, so that's why now when we approach larger startups that are based internationally, they find it interesting, the approach that we have, because it's less risky. It's also iterating fast through fast prototyping. It's a bit of a tech mentality, you like you test.

You do errors, you retest and then bill by bit you refine. Yeah, exactly. And especially the large, the big risk, you you want to de-risk these important critical parts like early on stage. And so I think that it was quite a thing to start that way because it helped us to really try to be the most efficient possible.

They can see what they're going to get a bit sooner, can't they? They've got that constant feedback loop.

and to bring the value, to bring a real value for these companies. So yeah, I would say that's the way, yeah, probably we started.

Do you, know, that agile kind of rapid iteration, the feedback loop that you offer to startup clients, you know, does that translate well into the bigger corporates, the enterprise clients as well? Do they buy into that?

Yeah, totally. very differently. think they like this kind of methodology that we have put within. I think this is one of the things they even ask because it allows us to innovate. think startups have a lot of potential to innovate, to bring innovation. They sometimes lack of structure, they're maybe too naive at certain times.

or the lack of budget. In any case, the environments in which they are is quite fragile and it's not great to build something robust. Totally different in the case of a larger company, where it's a very well oiled, it's good machine. There's an idea, it's getting out and it's streamlined very well and efficiently. the issue is like, is the idea great?

Is it the best idea? it, should it be not like a, is it A or B or is there even a C or a hybrid or I don't know. And that kind of thing is what larger companies can be scared of. Did we miss an opportunity? Typically the syndrome of no can Blackberry with Apple. Oh, how can we not have seen such a, you know, but that,

hehehehe

that maybe the experience of touchscreen could have actually changed a lot of because basically they all wear phones with internet. It's not like they did not have integrated the same integrated technology, but they did use another technology of touchscreen that was used in an experience in a very different way, which is a touchscreen, which changed a lot of the overall experience.

And so obviously, know, no button, nothing of that. And that is something that they did in that city. So not saying that this is like kind of a trauma for all tech companies, not at all, but, it is something obviously that they are, they can be scared just in general, knowing that there might be a missed opportunity to compare with the competitors or just in general, if, it's the right knee or if do people really desire such things, you know, or once these things.

Yeah.

Yeah, you've got to be a lot more confident before you commit to prototyping and tooling, know, releasing files because, you know, with software, yeah.

Yeah.

That's why they the exactly that's why I think they spend so much money in strategy in You know the big He would say the big four in Belgium with you know and but but You know, it's it's just you want to to sort of de-risk your assumptions to a lot of strategy, but the issue with that is that Strategy alone

It's just numbers and feedbacks of people that actually have potentially no clue of what really matters or what is needed. Well, of course, it will be helpful and it's necessary to do it. But is it enough to see, mean, how would people guess that actually they want a touchscreen, for example, back then with Apple, if I take that example? You know, they have no clue, they don't know, they...

But maybe if you have the product in your hands, maybe it's totally different. Maybe if you present it differently, if you show the experience differently, it changed the whole topic. it's a lot about how you suggest these dreams. You have to suggest dreams for people to, I want to embrace that dream. And that's not what strategic companies are really doing.

Yeah, it's a very difficult one because, you know, companies like, like Apple, obviously they innovate extremely well. They will have a fantastic research team, but a lot of it's intuition, you know, and a lot of it, you know, they're creating categories. you know, a lot of the time, where, know, you'll see some of the, I remember hearing about the iPad before that was launched and it was, you know, no one wants that. No, no one wants that kind of.

device, iPad, the name sounds ridiculous. And yet everyone's got one or a version of it. It launched a whole kind of category of products. And it's the same with the fitness watch and the Apple watch. I think more recent examples with other companies like Shark Ninja, the Ninja cooking brand, they launched an ice cream maker into the market where, you

there wasn't a market there. was like a million dollars or something worldwide. then, then that year they created a hundred plus million dollar market because people went out and bought this ice cream maker in droves. But there wasn't any evidence to say it would be a success. It's just when you build something in, I guess both those companies have reputations for innovating and fans, don't they?

I think that's why when you are bridging creative strategists and engineers together, this is exactly what we're trying to do at FutureWay. It's like really building a lot of different expertise that knows the technology, having a lot of strategy that can understand these dynamics, these business dynamics and creatives.

that are more receptive to a form of empathic intelligence and intuition. These are very important because like when you create a product, there's a bit of a tree gnome that is super interesting. A product is like how you feel it, how you think about it and how you behave with it. It's interesting because like the way you feel is something very intuitive. The way you think can be measured and this is more like, you know,

more cerebral logic and the way you behave normally is a way of how you control these kind of behaviors and the way of doing it. then normally this is lot related to the functionalities itself, which is more technical. And so that's interesting to see that when you want to generate a

Chris Whyte (27:59.352)

Yeah.

propose other things like a lot has to do with intuition to be sure like I felt that this was a dream that was not just my dream but it was a more common dream a dream at least where people can adhere to you say that in English adhere to because that is that is what people love to think about is you know it's like yeah they want to dream you know if you just propose another

another functional product. It's great. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's most of the time it's great. But with what you can do with it, it can vacate the dream potentially. And it can be simple object. Doesn't need to be big crazy things. A simple tool can allow you to do dreams. So I think, yeah, if you want to sell, create, generate, build dreams,

Hmm.

you need to have a form of intuition. But maybe it's not enough if you only build this on based on intuition. There's a lot of risk, you know, and then that's where strategy engineers are there also to complement that.

huh.

Yeah, and marketing and branding and storytelling, you know, it's a whole ecosystem, isn't it? And if you get one bit of that wrong, it can fall over. So it's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. That's the whole ecosystem.

Exactly. Yeah, because your branding is how you're going to tell that story the narrative behind it's you know, the whole experience has a narrative. Yeah,

Yeah, you get people to fall in love with, you know, it's not just another thing. It's like, it's a, you know, it's about the benefits and the impact of them, how it's going to change your life and make you realize your dreams, you know, whether that be ice cream or a watch. So really interesting.

Yeah, exactly. Interesting story with the ice cream. With the ice cream, I was not aware of the company. Sounds interesting.

Yeah.

Really? Yeah, super, super interesting. Well, let's talk about kind of where you're going then with FutureWave because, you know, we've talked about in the last year or so you've really focused on winning big corporate accounts. And you've talked to me about expansion as well with the business, looking into London and San Francisco. This is part of the podcast where I can

press mark clip if that's the kind of stuff you don't want releasing but you know how's that how's that kind of expansion going and what are some of the kind of the challenges or or surprises that you're kind of coming across

You

Well, it's a bit early stage. think we decide to do that move because we have more more international clients. We work a lot with France, with Germany, with Switzerland. We start with SF as well, more specifically SF in US. A bit of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Chinese.

companies. But yeah, I think it's because we have more more clients that we decide to expand more in these directions. So it's a bit more travels. So I would not say at this stage that is a clear, direct, aggressive expansion. I think we want to be sure that we do

You haven't got boots on the ground just yet. It's yeah.

stuff right that we do. First, the focus is not how we expand. We want to create great products for this is our aim is really to focus on how incredible experience can we build around this technology about today's technology, but also tomorrow's technology. And what is the experience we have to build around that? What should be these products for, for, for people and to help future generations. So I think this is really our main goal. What the impact we want to have, have this kind of

a more humanistic impact on tech products and on global scale. So whether we stay more in Belgium and we have a larger network of freelancers, whether we have an office that we open abroad.

everything is possible. We are looking into it, but I think it's more depending more of how much it makes sense to help the companies we're going to work with.

Because that client FaceTime is important, it? Getting an experience in the culture of the business and spending quality time, a face-to-face meeting, a sit down, a tour of the studio or the factory, you're going to get way more out of that than a video call or a phone call because they always feel time limited, don't they? Whereas you always get a bit more in person.

Yeah.

Yeah, true. I think we have been working with people from New York and San Francisco, and Hong Kong. Honestly, we had a project in Uzakia for the World Fair as well. It has not been an issue at all to work abroad and with a long distance.

We want to be sure that what we do is, and when we have really to meet up in real face to face, you know, and to ship, then we just, we meet. I think what we trying to do is really to have weekly meetings, even if it's through teams and to be sure like, okay, this works, this exactly work. And okay, if you want, we can just ship it right away. And we do a fast shipping towards you.

Do you need explanation? If they need a personal assistant, okay, well then we ship someone with them. No, it's just literally like, you know, it's just a travel cost for sure. better than a travel cost, you know, when it's really necessary, then engage yourself into an office with a lot of people where there might be a lot of other problems, like whether it's the way you work.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

It's a whole organization that you need also to do with international.

Yeah, you've got to have confidence that there's enough work there, because the cost of employing designers and having infrastructure. And so at the end, in SF is, yeah, I imagine a lot higher than it is in Belgium.

Yeah.

But I think we want a nice ecosystem in which to work in. If you start to stress your business with a lot of other challenges, such as managing people, which you have already to do. If you really like, our goal is to focus on the quality of what we deliver for clients.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

The rest is just the mean, you know, that if we have to organize travels and stuff like that. But for sure, yeah, we are looking also bro, because there are certain spots in the area where the demand is increasing and where we see that there's like really added value to have also, yeah, another base there.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I see that a lot from kind of longer established businesses that have got headquarters in London or Berlin or somewhere like that. And then they'll have kind of a little satellite office in New York or all that in SF. And you'd have one or two consultants there, but they can then, at a moment's notice, go and conduct the kind of reviews. So interesting. So let's talk about generative design, because that's the topic that you wanted to...

Yeah, exactly.

to cover. How much of a role does that kind of play in your process as a business now versus traditional methods?

So just to be sure, because I see different ways of answering that question. So how much is generative design differentiating with other metallurgy for other? So I would say, yeah. I think that...

Yeah, so how much?

It's mainly due to the structure of our organization. We are composed of a large variety of people. Most innovation studios have a lot of strategists with some creatives or a lot of creatives, more design studio with some strategists. We try to have a fair blend of...

a lot of different engineers, mechanical, industrial, electronic, deep electronic software, hardware. And you know, like this, all these different people and this different expertise altogether is great because they are very differentiating from themselves. know, they are very different. so to have...

but I will explain more in detail what I mean about generative design is how, what you're trying to do when you have a brief, when you have like a project is how are you going to deliver something that is desired, that is viable, that is feasible, right? That is, let's say the best answer possible for a market and for people. So.

The client has no idea, you have no idea at that time. But you have to brief. what is interesting is you're going to have or set a first, let's say, it's like a creative sort of brainstorm that where you put a lot of large variety of people and they all going to generate.

a lot of different IDs, how diverse they are, how different these IDs are. And that's great because then you can use the same people and have with this very different, large variety of skills and use it as a filter for all these IDs that were generated. And this is a bit like softwares and generative design or others that is, you know, it's like a generating, filtering.

and then based on that you regenerate and so on and so on and how more you iterate how more you're going to build something that is best optimal solution and so normally what what a lot of people do is they're going to generate a lot of ids and they're going to select what they like best and they're going to do hybrids right this is a bit like a traditional method it's a bit different when you really try to have a very

It's almost like an algorithm. You know, really have a lot of data. You basically replace data with people. It's a bit the same thing. You have a lot of data. How more data, how more different are your data? And how more you can filter that and put like a very tuned filter. How more accurate your response is going to be at the end. So it's the same. It's exactly the same.

So we're trying to replicate that but in a more human scale with a lot of variety of competences that are going to generate and filter all these. And then you create a loop in a cycle and that is going to bit by bit, cracked a bit, something that is more optimal. Typically your engineers are more going to validate visibility.

and your strategy is more the viability and the designer more the viability in general. But people are very nuanced and so obviously it's going to you know it's the answer is much more nuanced than just a mathematical formula. So I think that that's the interesting thing about this generative mythology is that

The end result is something that is already a bit de-risk on the viability, desirability and feasibility. And this is something that is thanks to or related to this kind of filtering effects. Yeah, that's a bit the way it works. The more you iterate and the more further you go, because this can be just as a brainstorm. You can just do a brainstorm of two hours.

OK.

with this kind of methodology. just say, okay, let's all generate individually for 10 minutes around that brief, around this ID. Great. How we filter that? Okay, we have a selection. And after that, should we do groups of two people, two by two, and again, do a round of 10 minutes of generating IDs around three selected or more interesting.

or more promising products, the one that were not killed basically. And it's important to have all these things that were killed because that can also generate other ideas obviously. And based on that after that, how more you iterate, how further you can go. But this can just be a two hour brainstorm session. As much as you can do longer cycles with the same principle. But for example,

far can you de-risk? At some point you need to prototype. So who is going to prototype something? For example, like if it's related more to electronics, it's more an engineer, a tech engineer that is going to prototype that. If it's more mechanical, a mechanical engineer. And so obviously how more diverse is your team, how more you can prototype fast these things and validate these assumptions. And these are really important.

in, in, in, time of like what you present to your client, the deliverable, you know, the feasibility of your project, but, but a strategist is potentially going to say, okay, well, I'm going to do a thorough study and research and check with, with yeah, a larger, you know, like, do a qualitative or quantitative study based on, on what has been out. And for example, it's much more interesting to show a prototype or to show.

even visual content or renderings to a qualitative study, to people that will be part of the qualitative study, then just some base question marks. And this is where the designer is involved in participating in the study and helping the strategist to suggest more content.

These are sort of important because they work much more together to elevate and enhance the response that they might get. And that is sort of important in the way we work. And it's not crazy. It's quite inspired by just the principle of evolution. It's the same methodology and the same thing that you see in generative software. But I think that, yeah.

Yeah.

just seems quite organic and natural to work like that, like a full organism. That's a bit the idea, right? It's working as a full organism where people don't fight for your idea. Yeah.

So you're augmenting your kind of process as opposed to, you know, replacing chunks of it. So interesting, interesting. know, looking back through your kind of career and more recently, you know, last five and a half years of building FutureWave, know, tell us about some of the, some of the challenges, some of the obstacles that, you know, you've had to overcome that have been key kind of lessons for you that you're to take forward.

Yeah.

Hopefully might, you know, be a value to listeners to hear.

put it on the spot there, I appreciate it.

Yeah, interesting. I think there's a lot of...

of mistakes that had to be done because these allow me to really understand how to improve things. I think a lot of mistakes that others has done that were necessary for, everybody is evolving on that aspect. so I would say that one thing that is quite crucial is

is to really follow directly your instincts. When something feels right, you should push further because it is something like, we often say like, it's like having, you know, when it's in your gut, normally you're right. And when you do stuff with passion and love and then this normally deliver a good quality.

and people know you did put the effort and it pays off. Or at least it will bounce into something else and flourish into something else. that is something that is super hard when you are like, we say in French, when you have the head in the steering wheel somehow. It's like really you're so busy and focused on what you have in front of you that you...

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It sounds very cliche and better to say that because it's, but honestly, it's more hard than we think to really keep and stay as instinctive as possible. And then you keep focus on that. You keep that dream and because the focus is existential. think this is maybe a second key for sure is yeah.

you it's very easy to to seize an opportunity well let's let's jump on that and sounds like like otherwise we might miss an opportunity yeah for sure but keep focused on the core on the core of what you want of what you of what you dream of and i think this is probably what we struggle the most with feature wave

And I think it was more related to also the markets we, because the ecosystem in, in, Belgium of hardware and tech products wasn't really there. And one of the main thing everybody, every business coach, everybody's going to say is try to be the master of your own country or your own, and then, and then, and then maybe expand later. A lot of people would say that, uh, try to be local first and, and do, do well there.

Yeah and no. Well typically I would say no in no case. think that there are stuff that we should have maybe took more in consideration there before. But I think yeah, focus. and really speak with your heart. These are...

Hahaha

Yeah.

primer, I think.

Awesome. And we're going to wrap this up very quickly. looking ahead to the next 12 months, obviously, we've already talked about some exciting things that you're exploring internationally with clients and potentially looking at expanding out into the States and wider into Europe. But what have you got coming up that you're quite excited about?

project? Yeah, yeah, totally. think transportation, we definitely have a lot of things coming ahead for larger groups and other companies, promising companies that really want to understand like what should be

Projects, yeah. Just getting stuck in.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Because there's a lot of things to do in mobility, obviously. there were a lot of fields, it's been difficult times also business-wise in that field. But I think they also know that if they don't innovate, it's not going to get better. yeah, shifting ways we move, creating these new experiences on...

on these integrated technology we're going to build in mobility is going to be quite interesting, but also how and challenge how simple we try to still make it because you know integrate more technology and more technology well you know more and more and more complex you know it's and we have to make it more and more simple so it's like a bit of two very opposite tangency that we're taking but

Yeah, would say transportation companies based in Europe. There are some interesting deals and in the next coming months there that they're coming up building the vision of, you know, these companies in five, 10 years. And then we also, I think I'm quite excited personally on certain things that are in consumer tech and miniaturization of electronics in high-end.

especially related to healthcare. So more wellbeing is, I don't know if it's really healthcare, but it's like more small. think that this is like something that is more more said about like the real luxury is more going to be like the time that people will allow themselves to take for themselves, you know, to invest in themselves and to take care of themselves. And whether it's psychologically, whether it's just general healthcare or

other form of well-being activities. There's also a lot there that we are currently working on and that is super exciting. I started based in, cannot say much about it, but based in UK actually. Very exciting and yeah, and then some robotics, some robotics.

What is allowed to do and how do we automate and enhance certain things? I don't think it's like people are very scared on that aspect. It's how do we elevate human beings, elevate their lives with these kind of automated system? And how can we really redefine also that purpose of these kind of?

automated system and robotics. And I think that is also very interesting. So quite diverse. Yeah. Basically between miniature research of electronics with invisible tech. I think in wellbeing will be quite interesting and robotic is like, how do we really build this kind of new experiences and then transportation? That's the same. So these are a bit like the three sectors in which we are in, in which they are like, yeah, I'm sorry. I cannot really.

Yeah.

super excited. It's always, yeah.

Unfortunately, it's long-term vision for these companies, I cannot disclose. Really, are some patterns also regarding these companies and stuff.

Yeah. Well, I know from, this is always the part of the conversation where, you know, I'm thinking, what can we or can't we say? it depends on when the episode goes out. It's like, probably best to just talk about themes and industries rather than chance kind of talking about actual projects.

Yeah, no, but for sure, for sure. That's why I think it's more inspiring to talk about like where we think there's a future in hardware products and where we should focus on. that's why I'm stressing that point with I think the, you know, invisible tech and how do we do we...

create more immersed experiences of technology, that feels still very human, that interact, that communicate with humans in a very natural and seamless way, but at the same time has also real purpose for people. That is super important. How do we create that? And that is make a lot of sense for healthcare, for wellbeing and that kind of environment. And while transportation is much more like how efficient

Can we be, can we create, if we think of the future of trains in five to 10 years, how should people really travel in trains? What should be their habits? Just sitting and being on your phone or is there something else that you can, there's definitely something else there that can be created and same with many other mobility projects.

And yeah, this is probably where I would, where I personally feel very excited. Because I think it's where they are the biggest impact for, for human kinds, for, for people itself. Like, want to do, to do stuff that has a real purpose.

Yeah, it's brilliant.

That's a theme that comes up every day when I'm speaking to people like yourself, but also design and engineering talent. I want to design stuff with impact, stuff that makes a difference. That's the key thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it's super hard because obviously when you try to find the solutions, most of the time you create a new experience that is going to be misused experience. Which is not a bad thing, but obviously there's often, we see that with phones, with technology there's really this love-hate relationship. And it's quite interesting to see what can we do there.

Hmm, yeah.

around, for example, phones around, you know, is the future of smartphones typically is this very interesting topic. And I think that we created great technology. We have created great products. And I talk about people, not about us here, but we poorly managed really like the full scope of the experiences of these products.

Yeah.

And we should definitely not be too naive when we put something on the market. when we see the damage that smartphones can have on people's psychology, I think there's a lot to do, obviously. And it's not just about the hardware and technology, obviously. Here I'm talking more deeply about what is the...

What is the use of these products? And then, you know, how can maybe the create a shift or to help this paradigm? And I think, there's a lot to do there for sure.

Yeah.

Such a deep topic to dive into at the end of the podcast. But for another day, but yeah, absolutely. Jack, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Thank you for entertaining my questions. I've loved kind of hearing your stories and your take on design. So I'll include links to your profile, to the website so people can reach out to you on the show notes. But yeah, thank you again.

For a next one.

Thank you so much, Chris, for the invitation.

Thank you, thank you, Chris. Thank you very much for your time.