Led by HATLAB studio team

The Design Component: Ecosystem & Market Design Studio

The design component is the core of SEE-ME. It is where participants apply the foundational concepts of transactions, organization, coordination, and digital markets to the intentional design of a real ecosystem that addresses a concrete economic or societal problem.

Rather than beginning with a product, platform, or policy intervention, the design process begins with a desired outcome and works outward to design the system required to achieve and sustain that outcome. This reflects the central premise of SEE-ME: markets and ecosystems must be designed around purpose, participation, and incentives, not retrofitted after failure.

The design component unfolds over a two-month studio-based challenge, supported by weekly mentor clinics, and progresses through a set of interconnected design lenses. These lenses follow the structure of the ecosystem framework and canvas , but are adapted for exploratory, educational use.

1. Defining Purpose and Outcomes

Each design challenge begins by clearly articulating the outcome the ecosystem is intended to achieve, both for participants at the “messy bottom” of the system and for the broader economy or society.

Participants are encouraged to frame outcomes in terms of meaningful change rather than activity. For example, improved access to finance, reduced waste, healthier behaviour, more resilient livelihoods, or improved last-mile participation. Purpose functions as the organizing logic of the ecosystem, providing direction and coherence to subsequent design choices.

2. Mapping Participants, Roles, and Value

Once purpose and outcomes are defined, teams identify the participants required for the ecosystem to function. This includes individuals, small firms, institutions, public bodies, and private organizations that either contribute to or benefit from the outcome.

Participants then examine how value is created, exchanged, and recognized across the ecosystem. This step surfaces where value exists but is currently invisible, where exchanges fail to occur, and where incentives are misaligned. The focus is not on firm-level value capture, but on system-level value flows.

3. Designing Journeys and Participation

With participants and value flows identified, teams design the journeys through which individuals or organizations participate in the ecosystem. These journeys describe how actors enter the system, how they progress toward the desired outcome, and how participation is sustained over time.

Rather than focusing on user experience alone, journeys are treated as mechanisms of coordination. They reveal what actions are required, what evidence of progress matters, and where friction or dropout is likely to occur.

4. Incentives, Coordination, and Governance

The next lens focuses on incentives and coordination mechanisms. Teams examine how different actors are motivated to participate, cooperate, or invest in the ecosystem, and how these motivations align or conflict.

This includes exploring financial and non-financial incentives, rewards, reputational benefits, access rights, or risk reduction. Governance is considered as an enabling structure rather than a compliance layer: what rules, norms, or institutional arrangements are required for the ecosystem to function and scale?

5. Data, Evidence, and Trust

Participants then examine what data and evidence are required for the ecosystem to work. This includes identifying what signals demonstrate progress toward outcomes, who generates or holds relevant data, and how trust is established between actors.

Rather than treating data as a technical layer, teams consider data as an economic coordination mechanism. They explore how visibility, verification, and shared evidence reduce transaction costs, enable participation, and support incentive alignment—particularly for actors who are currently invisible.