In a world increasingly defined by disruption, disillusionment and disconnection, I find myself returning – both physically and philosophically – to the question that quietly anchors all meaningful work: What makes a good life?
This question is at the heart of the Designing Your Life (DYL) framework, first imagined at Stanford University by my mentors and colleagues, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. At Stanford, we have long known that education cannot merely be the transfer of knowledge. It must also be the rehearsal of meaning. DYL offers a powerful and practical toolkit for just that – it brings the deep logic of design thinking to the inner lives of individuals, empowering them to build purpose-driven futures with empathy, curiosity and iteration.
I have had the privilege of teaching this methodology in Silicon Valley, watching it shape how students approach not only their careers but also their identities, their relationships and the communities they hope to serve. At its best, this curriculum does not prescribe a path – it invites you to prototype one. It encourages you to fail wisely, listen deeply and design boldly.
To see this curriculum take root now in Karachi – my home city, the city that shaped me – is both humbling and electrifying. The collaboration between Stanford’s Life Design Lab, the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) and the Government of Sindh is not just a professional homecoming; it is a philosophical one.
Already, the effects of this pedagogical disruption are beginning to reveal themselves. At IBA, we are now beginning to see the early contours of what I call enlightened entrepreneurship – a generative mindset in which enterprise is no longer animated by mere market arbitrage but by moral clarity and civic imagination.
Students will not simply ask, “What job should I take?” but rather, “What problem is worth solving?” – and just as crucially, “Whom is it worth solving it with?”
Their future ventures will be less concerned with exit strategies rather than with entry points into systemic change. They will not be designed to circumvent Pakistan’s challenges but to confront and reimagine them. Capstone projects will increasingly resemble interdisciplinary social laboratories, and final presentations will evolve into prototypes for social mobility and inclusivity, and not merely for profitability.
This work does not end at the classroom door. In partnership with the Sindh government, our Life Design teams have begun embedding design thinking into public service – prototyping civic solutions to Karachi’s most entrenched challenges, from traffic reform to urban beautification.
One project in particular envisions II Chundrigar Road as a fully functional, rule-abiding stretch of Karachi where every detail – from traffic signals to bus stops – works as it should. A road that functions not just as infrastructure but as a metaphor. A vision of the city not as it is, but as it could be. Our team has already submitted a comprehensive set of design prototypes for this project. But governments, even the most well-meaning ones, often move slower than ideas.
In Silicon Valley, this methodology has quietly reshaped the cultural DNA of leading institutions. Apple’s design ethic, Google’s moonshot thinking, and the reinvention of customer centricity at Porsche and Mercedes have been influenced by the human-centred mindset DYL advances.
But in Pakistan, its stakes are higher. Its promise is deeper. Because here, it is not just helping young people find jobs. It is helping them find meaning. And for a society grappling with institutional fatigue and generational drift, this is not a curriculum. This is oxygen.
DYL gives language to aspirations we often feel but cannot articulate. It offers a method to our uncertainty, form to our doubt, and structure to our hopes. And perhaps most radically, it reframes agency – not as rebellion but as design.
This is not the work of a semester. It is the work of a generation. But it begins, as all good designs do, with the courage to askbetter questions.
See in conversation with Dr S. Akbar Zaidi.
Junaid Aziz is a design strategist and educator whose work resides at the intersection of brand, behaviour and design. jaziz@sas.upenn.edu