World-building workshop by CERN IdeaSquare and EPFL

Monday 15 Sept 2025, 12:00 → 17:00 Europe/Zurich

Pablo Garcia Tello (CERN)

This world-building workshop by CERN IdeaSquare and EPFL is the result of collaboration between the two institutions on a course for EPFL students from ENAC.

The novel methodology used on this course is IdeaSquare Planet, or i2P for short, developed at IdeaSquare in collaboration between its partners to enable students to tap deep into their creativity working in multidisciplinary teams. Participants learn about solving complex problems, by applying a systems-thinking approach, using futures thinking as a tool, and being inspired by the way physicists and engineers work at CERN.

The methodology is divided to two parts - going to an imaginary exoplanet and coming back to Earth to apply learnings in a real world context. In this world-building workshop we will be working on creating realistic exoplanet environments to be used in the narratives students work on. These exoplanet environments should provide a setting that requires working with scarce resources and pondering trade-offs - but also one that doesn't pose an impossible challenge on the students.

12:00 → 13:30 Lunch

13:30 → 14:00 Intro to the Lab

14:00 → 14:30 Intro to i2P methodology and showcasing past examples

Possibly showing the categories - more technical, more humanistic, etc.

14:30 → 15:30 Brainstorming on planetary settings

15:30 → 15:45 Break

15:45 → 16:30 Sharing our planets, identifying open questions and expertise needed to answer them

16:30 → 17:00 Next steps