Fusion Forward Juror Spotlight: Keren Ruth Wong of IDEO's Play Lab

Before she joined IDEO, Keren Ruth Wong launched two education organizations across Greater China and the U.S., working with government bureaus, principals, and parents to rethink how kids build English literacy. A World Economic Forum Global Shapers alumna with a B.S. from Cornell and an M.P.A. from Tsinghua University, Wong brings both a behavioral researcher's patience and a builder's urgency to the jury team on the Fusion Forward: Design For Home competition.

At IDEO's PlayLab, Wong helps partners apply the psychology of play to challenges spanning finance, health, mobility, and education. Her specific focus is global youth behavior, particularly fandom in media and entertainment, where she watches emerging technology get stress-tested in real time and sees brand loyalty built or broken in public view. It's a vantage point that treats young users not as a demographic to design for, but as a signal for where design is headed next.

"What excites me most is watching youth reclaim human-centeredness in how they adopt technology, redefine work, and orient toward the future," Wong says. "They grew up with a front-row seat to unintended consequences, and it shows. They're asking better questions than we did."

That same attentiveness shapes what concerns her about the field. Design has always shaped behavior, she says, but the speed of today's technology means designers are now shaping entire developmental environments before fully understanding the consequences. "Gen Z and Gen Alpha aren't just users — they're growing up inside these ecosystems," she says. "The long-term behavioral impact of that is something the design field is still learning how to take seriously."

For entrants preparing their Fusion Forward submissions, Wong's advice pushes past the usual checklist. "Design not just for the interaction, but also for the relationship," she says, "how trust builds, how behavior shifts, how people grow with or away from what you made."

It's a fitting lens for a home design competition. The products entrants submit won't be used once and discarded — they'll sit in kitchens, yards, and living rooms, forming the kind of long-term relationship Wong is asking designers to account for.

Fusion Forward: Design for Home is now open for entries. Three categories to choose from, $9,750 in prizes. Deadline for entry September 28.