SEE-ME is structured as an online learning and design program that integrates conceptual learning with applied ecosystem and market design work. The program is intentionally designed to operate at the intersection of academia, industry, and public systems, while remaining coherent and repeatable across different contexts.
At its core, SEE-ME consists of two tightly integrated components: a foundational learning component and a system design component. These are not sequential in a traditional sense, but mutually reinforcing. Conceptual learning informs design work, while design work continuously tests and deepens conceptual understanding.
The foundational learning component is delivered as a 10-hour intensive course at the start of the programme. Its purpose is to establish a shared design language and systems perspective across participants, regardless of disciplinary background. It focuses on how value is created and coordinated across ecosystems rather than within individual organizations, how markets are shaped by incentives and institutions, and how data and identity function as economic infrastructure in post-digital economies. This component ensures that participants approach subsequent design challenges with a systems mindset, rather than defaulting to product-, platform-, or policy-led fixes.
The system design component forms the core of SEE-ME and runs over a two-month studio-based design challenge. Working in multidisciplinary teams, participants apply the foundational concepts to real ecosystem and market challenges. These challenges typically involve fragmented participation, cross-sector coordination, and last-mile complexity, and are sourced from industry, government, and public–private contexts. Importantly, they are deliberately framed at the level of markets and ecosystems rather than narrow operational problems.
Throughout the design phase, teams participate in weekly design clinics with HATLAB Studio mentors. These clinics provide structured opportunities to test assumptions, interrogate incentive structures, refine system boundaries, and surface system-level insights. Between clinics, teams conduct research, engage with relevant stakeholders where appropriate, and iteratively develop their designs.
Together, the foundational learning and system design components create a structured environment in which participants learn to design systems that work under real-world constraints.
The primary outcome of SEE-ME is capability, rather than implementation. The programme is designed to develop the ability to see, understand, and intentionally design markets and ecosystems where existing structures fail.
For participants, SEE-ME builds the capability to work at the level of systems rather than silos. Participants learn to identify where market failures originate, how incentives shape behaviour across actors, and how governance, data, and identity enable or block participation. They develop fluency in designing market architectures that align economic, social, and environmental objectives, rather than treating these as trade-offs to be managed after the fact.
For academic partners, SEE-ME produces graduates who are better prepared to operate in complex, cross-sector environments. Students leave with hands-on experience in ecosystem and market design that complements their disciplinary training and enhances their employability in roles that require systems thinking, coordination, and strategic design.
For industry and public-sector partners, the outcome is design intelligence. SEE-ME produces clear, structured representations of how markets and ecosystems function, where they break down, and what alternative designs might look like. These outputs help partners make more informed decisions about policy, investment, regulation, or collaboration before committing significant resources.
More broadly, SEE-ME contributes to the emergence of ecosystem and market design as a recognized discipline, creating shared language, methods, and design artifacts that can be reused and adapted across contexts.
SEE-ME is delivered through HATLAB Studio, which acts as the programme’s orchestrator, design authority, and connective tissue between participants.
Delivery is online, modular and adaptable, allowing SEE-ME to be integrated into different academic calendars and partnership contexts while maintaining a consistent design philosophy. While the standard structure combines a short foundational phase with a two-month design challenge, the programme can be delivered within a semester, academic term, or intensive format depending on partner needs.
HATLAB Studio is responsible for framing design challenges, curating learning content, guiding the studio process, and ensuring that work remains focused on ecosystem and market design rather than drifting into narrow solution development. Studio mentors provide ongoing guidance through weekly clinics, helping teams navigate complexity, test assumptions, and surface system-level insights.
Academics are responsible for student participation, academic oversight, and assessment. Industry and public-sector partners contribute context, constraints, and feedback, participating as collaborators rather than clients. This shared delivery model ensures that SEE-Me remains both academically rigorous and grounded in real-world realities.
Crucially, SEE-ME is designed to be repeatable and scalable. Each cohort contributes not only design outputs, but also learning that feeds back into the programme’s methods and frameworks. Over time, this creates a growing body of ecosystem and market design knowledge that strengthens future iterations.
SEE-ME is a structured program for learning how to design markets and ecosystems intentionally, at a time when many of the systems societies rely on are no longer fit for purpose.