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Service Design (MA)

João Alves Marrucho

I have a wide set of interests: from economics and monetary theory to system design and future thinking, from music to programming languages. With the Service Design MA I'm hoping to jump on something new (mixed reality, blockchain infrastructures, digital content distribution) or help existing organisations effectively plan and design new services or improve their existing services.

I have experience in working within (and in leading) multidisciplinary teams. I would like to live in some place next to the beach and have friends over regularly. I'm excited about self-driving cars.

Poster
Poster — Poster for project presentation that took place at Passos Manuel, Porto.
UNIT — The Social Contract Aspect of Money (1) — This video briefly describes the relevance of the social-contract aspect of money. And frames the question: How might we create a better form of state-money ready for the 4th Industrial Revolution?
Paper
Paper — Journal of Accounting & Finance (invited submission/accepted manuscript) Key concepts: money, credit theory of money, semiotics, symbol, fractional-reserve banking, valor, value, supra-monetary & intra-monetary agents, irreversible state of ‘eternal debt’, endemic competition environment, social contract, productivity and value creation
UNIT — Monetary Mechanisms to Control Currency Inflation and Deflation (2) — This video succinctly explains how UNIT creates and destroys money to keep prices stable.
UNIT's website
Launch Project
UNIT's website — I’ve kept a live website to prototype with partners, specialists, casual visitors, exposing the process to look for constant criticism. The website was a portal to participatory design exercises like a miro board to collaborate with a mathematician to arrive to the UBI/premium equations, a miro board with other designers to give a shape to UNIT’s inflation control mechanisms, several surveys and interviews. It also contains a mini-game in which people are asked to build their own nations.
UNIT – Life With UNIT (3) — This video illustrates how UNIT could positively impact various aspects of people’s lives
UNIT's book
UNIT's book — Extends the analysis of the working paper. It describes UNIT's' proposal, its social contract, monetary mechanisms, implementation phases. The book was sent to partners during project development for criticism.
UNIT — What would you do if you'd be given a basic income? (4) — I've asked people what they would do if they would be given regular basic income. These are some of their answers.

UNIT is a process-driven speculative design project of a monetary system with an incorporated currency. It provides basic income to all citizens and gives governments a better way to fund their programmes. Based on a set of rules that dictate how money is created, distributed and eliminated, UNIT accounts for people’s basic needs, while also incentivising work and innovation. The programmatic architecture underpinning the model can be adapted to various technical settings; from centralised models to distributive or decentralised models. UNIT has its own inflation control mechanisms ensuring there’s never an excessive supply of money which would lead to an unrestrained rise of prices.

Medium:

Process-driven speculative design
Project report
Launch Project
Project report — Service design consultancy for EcoGif final report
Oozeco — In many ways, Oozeco is just like another food ordering service that matches the sellers' and buyers' needs. But with some key differences. This video demonstrates those features.
App prototypes
Launch Project
App prototypes — We've developed various iterations to try to understand how Oozeco main features could work (Eco-ID card, Suggestions – from producer to retailer to clients)

Ozeeco resulted from a Service Design consultancy project in which our team helped the client EcoGif develop a sustainable marketplace platform focused on food delivery (Ozeeco) and an overall brand strategy for EcoGif as an umbrella brand.

Medium:

Service design project