In his work he explores emerging patterns within just transition processes, public innovation, and digital transformation. Simon has a background in sociology, political science, economics and philosophy with a particular focus on Systems Theory. He has been working with public, private and civic organisations for over a decade and is (occasional) visiting lecturer at the Faculty for Social Design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.
Simon Höher is an Independent Strategic and Public Designer as well as Systems Change Lead at Dark Matter Laboratories. In his work he explores emerging patterns within just transition processes, public innovation, and digital transformation. Simon has a background in sociology, political science, economics and philosophy with a particular focus on Systems Theory. He has been working with public, private and civic organisations for over a decade and is (occasional) visiting lecturer at the Faculty for Social Design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.
Simon is currently supporting the European Commission's Net Zero Cities Mission and in the past has been working with a variety of clients – from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Economic Forum to The New Institute in Hamburg and the African Centre for Cities in Cape Town. Other clients and partners include Mozilla Foundation, Open Knowledge Foundation, Wikimedia e.V, the RISE Cities program of BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt, Institute for Future Studies and Technology Assessment in Potsdam, CityLab Berlin, GovTech Campus Germany, as well as various corporations, municipalities and ministries.
He is an alumnus at the European Policy Center's FutureLab in Brussels, and at MIT's International Development Innovation Network (IDIN). In 2012 he co-founded a tech venture around design collaboration and open source hardware and with it joined Seedcamp, Europe's largest accelerator program for early stage startups. Subsequently, in 2014, he co-founded and chaired ThingsCon, an international conference and community focused on exploring design and tech ethics in IoT. His work and contributions have been featured in national and international media including WIRED, Fast.co, Make: Magazine, BILD, Deutschlandfunk, Springer Press, ie9, and others.