Helelyn Tammsaar
Team Lead at Public Sector Innovation Team, Government Office of EstoniaHelelyn Tammsaar is an anthropologist exploring the most exotic tribe in the world – the Deep State. She is the Team Lead at the Estonian Public Sector Innovation Team – an experimental unit of four people serving all 11 Estonian ministries and their agencies. The team runs innovation programmes, innovation sprints, nudgeathons and a variety of workshops that combine service design, ethnographic methods, behavioural insights, co-creation and policy experimentation. Helelyn has led a variety of projects from all walks of life. She has tackled speeding with the Estonian Police, designed re-entry for young prisoners, explored recreational drug use in the nightlife. Her presentation reflects the experience smuggling design thinking into the military.
Talk
Operation Innovation: How the Estonian Defence Forces Took a Shot at Design Thinking
The current precarious geopolitical situation has raised wide discussions about Estonia’s defence capacity, but often these focus on either military technology or the strength of the allied forces. There is more behind the defence capability than just weapons: Estonia, similarly to neighbouring Scandinavian countries, practices a wide-scale defence strategy where the reserve army, consisting of regular citizens, plays an important role.
What happens after you walk into the Headquarters of the Estonian Defence Forces and declare to its leaders that you are not human-centred enough and could really benefit from service design?