Emerge

Starting in 2012, Arizona State University has hosted Emerge, an annual public "festival of futures" which "offers imaginative and hands-on experiences of the future–exposing the latest inventions from ASU and beyond, and asking how we might shape and adapt them in surprising ways." In 2019, Emerge honored the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci by focusing on the concept of invention.

"Can We Make It? Should We Make It?" was a live hour-long event at Emerge in which members of the local community presented pitches for their own inventions to both a public audience as well as a panel of experts. The expert panelists provided feedback on both the technical feasibility of the proposed inventions (can we make it?) as well as their potential social, environmental, political, and/or cultural impacts (should we make it?). The presentations ranged from young adults and amateur tinkerers to seasoned entrepreneurs and inventors.

In a playful twist on the "Shark Tank" model, the experts did not give an explicit positive or negative rating for each invention, but instead chose one of our selected emojis to summarize their assessment. The audience was also given a chance to express their sentiments using the same emojis, which were live recorded through an online polling app. After all the presentations were completed, the audience voted on the invention they thought could--and should--be made.