Tom Donaldson, SVP The LEGO Group

This episode features a conversation with Tom Donaldson, Senior Vice President at the LEGO Group and the leader of Creative Play Lab, LEGO’s behind-the-scenes R&D and disruptive innovation group. Tom explains how Creative Play Lab is tasked with pioneering the future of play, combining deep engineering in electronics, firmware, and mechatronics with LEGO’s long-standing commitment to creativity and physical building.

We focus on Smart Play and the new smart brick platform unveiled at CES, exploring why LEGO views it as a multi-year platform rather than a single product. Tom breaks down how an ordinary-looking brick contains sophisticated sensing, sound, light, and brick-to-brick awareness, all designed to respond naturally to how kids play. The conversation reveals how LEGO hides significant technical complexity behind simple, intuitive experiences, and why this approach represents an important step in how the company is thinking about the future of play.

An Exclusive Look Inside the Lego Group’s Super Secret Lab Dreaming Up the Future of Play

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What is Creative Effort?

Interviews with some of the world's most creative people about how they turn ideas into reality.