In 2011, years before “loneliness epidemic” entered mainstream vocabulary, social disconnection was an overlooked problem. Hosan Lee founded TABLETRIBES (2012–2018) to address it. Through 100+ format iterations with 3,000+ users across five cities, she developed a repeatable playbook for building relationships at scale – and learned that connection is foundational to happiness, health, well-being, and collective behavior change.

Now she applies these insights to aging, a market that systematically fails older adults. Products designed for later life are rejected by those who need them, products actually needed often don’t exist, and cultural narratives haven’t caught up with rising expectations for how products and services integrate into our lives. Her research maps what’s failing, what’s missing, and where design, market, or policy action might shift the system toward better outcomes.

She is completing an MDes in Design Futures at the Royal College of Art and is a guest researcher at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design. She studied at Johns Hopkins University and Art Center College of Design. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune, and Washington Post. She is based in London and Munich, with time spent in Zurich and Washington, DC.