Foundational Learning Component
The foundational learning component for the SEE-ME program is the “Markets and Service Ecosystems” course led by Professor Irene Ng with the University of Warwick team
10 Hours | Five Sessions of Two Hours Each
The foundational learning component of SEE-ME is delivered as a 10-hour intensive, structured into five two-hour sessions. Its purpose is to establish a shared conceptual foundation and design language across the cohort, enabling participants from different disciplines to engage productively in ecosystem and market design work.
Rather than focusing on tools or techniques, the sessions build progressively from first principles—how value is created and exchanged—toward an integrated understanding of how modern economies are organized and coordinated. Each session introduces core concepts that are revisited and applied during the subsequent studio-based design phase.
Session 1: Transactions, Value, and Exchange
The first session grounds participants in the fundamentals of economic interaction: transactions, value, and exchange. It explores how value is co-created, perceived, and exchanged between actors, and how transactions form the basic building blocks of all economic systems.
Participants examine different notions of value—economic, social, and contextual—and how these are revealed or obscured through transactions. Particular attention is paid to why certain actors or activities remain invisible to markets, and how missing identity, data, or trust prevent transactions from taking place. This session establishes the foundation for understanding market failure not as an abstract concept, but as a breakdown in exchange.
Session 2: Organizing Exchange — Firms and Platforms
Building on the concept of transactions, the second session explores how exchanges are organized within and across firms, platforms, and networks. It examines why firms exist, how they reduce transaction costs, and how platforms reorganize exchange by enabling multi-sided participation and new forms of coordination.
Participants explore the strengths and limits of firm-based and platform-based models, particularly in contexts involving fragmented actors or last-mile complexity. The session highlights how organizational form shapes who can participate in economic activity, under what conditions, and with what incentives—setting the stage for ecosystem thinking beyond individual organizations.
Session 3: Coordination — Markets and Regulation
The third session shifts focus from organizations to coordination at the system level. It examines how markets coordinate decentralized activity, how prices and incentives function as signals, and how regulation and institutions shape market behavior.
Participants explore the role of rules, standards, and governance in enabling or constraining participation, especially in cross-sector and public–private contexts. The session emphasizes that markets are not neutral or natural, but designed systems influenced by policy, regulation, and institutional choices. This understanding is critical for designing markets that align private incentives with public outcomes.
Session 4: Digital and Data Markets
The fourth session introduces digitalization and data as transformative forces in how markets operate. It examines how digital technologies change the cost and nature of transactions, enable new forms of coordination, and create new markets around data, identity, and trust.
Participants explore how data becomes an economic asset, how digital identity affects participation, and how data sharing and governance influence market structure. The session also addresses the challenges of data asymmetry, concentration, and exclusion, particularly at the “messy bottom” of the economy where data and identity are weakest. This session directly informs how digital and data considerations are embedded into ecosystem design work.
Session 5: The Modern Economy
The final session integrates the previous four into a coherent picture of the modern economy. It examines how transactions, organizations, markets, regulation, and digital systems interact in a post-digital, cross-sector world.