Takashi Iba is a Professor at Faculty of Policy Management as well as Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University. He is a board member of The Hillside Group, which promotes the use of patterns and pattern languages and also sponsors several conferences and publications on pattern languages; he is also the president of CreativeShift, Inc., which provides goods to utilize pattern languages and services to support creating new pattern languages.
Dr. Iba explores the art and science of "creation," covering creativity of individuals, teams, organizations, society, and nature toward the Creative Society, where people could create their own goods, tools, concepts, knowledge, mechanisms, and ultimately, the future with their own hands. He tackles the problem with the combinational approach of systems theory, methodology, and design practices.
He proposes a new theory about creation, Creative Systems Theory, based on the studies of autopoiesis and complex systems, and also provides pattern languages as a supporting media for creation. Collaborating with his students, Dr. Iba has created many pattern languages concerning human actions. He has authored Learning Patterns (2014), Presentation Patterns (2014), which received Good Design Award 2013, Collaboration Patterns (2014), Words for a Journey (2015), which received Good Design Award 2015 and Grand Prix of the Dementia Friendly Award by Orange Act 2015, Project Design Patterns (2017), and so on.
He authored the national best-selling scientific textbook, Introduction to Complex Systems: An Adventure to the Frontier of Knowledge (NTT Publishers, 1998, in Japanese), while a master student. The book has attained a sale of twenty thousand copies, and he received Keio University President Award (1998). He also authored Creative Learning (Keio University Press, 2019, in Japenese), Pattern Language (Keio University Press, 2013, in Japenese), Social Systems Theory (Keio University Press, 2011, in Japenese), etc.
He received a BA in Environmental Information, Master of Media and Governance, and a Ph.D. in Media and Governance from Keio University under the supervision of Professor Yoshiyasu Takefuji, computer scientist, and Professor Heizo Takenaka, economist who served as the Minister for Economic/Fiscal Policy, Financial Services, Internal Affairs and Communications in Japan. He was a visiting scholar at MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (2009-2010). He started his academic career in the science of complexity, and explored the underlying mechanisms of spontaneous order and diversity with using a computer simulation and network analysis. His current researches and activities are based on these studies.
Contact: Please send e-mail to the following address, if you have any requests for invited talks, workshops, or collaborations:
