Chris Baeza & Raja Schaar, IDSA

Chris Baeza has had an extensive 20+ year career as an accomplished design and merchandising executive with proven results working with iconic global brands. Chris has a strong background in the business of fashion and has multi-tier capabilities in men's, women's, accessories and children’s fashion with particular emphasis on brand-building for different channels of distribution. Her positions in the industry allowed her to travel all over the world, working with top companies such as Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, Adidas, Nordstrom, Dockers and Nautica.

Raja Schaar, IDSA (she/her) is Program Director and Assistant Professor of Product Design at Drexel University’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design. She also co-chairs IDSA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council and formerly served as the Education Director for the organization. Raja is an industrial designer with an extensive background in museum exhibit design and healthcare design who is passionate about ways design can make a positive impact on social inequities at the intersections of health equity, the environment justice, and STEAM education. 

Cli-fi Futures

Breakout Workshop

Track 2

Wed - Sept 22

6:00 pm EDT

How might we use apocalyptic science fiction or Climate Fiction (Cli-fi) to forecast the consequences of design decisions and to inspire a futures-focused approach to design? Participants will play a speculative world-building game designed by the authors, and based on themes of climate-fiction, Afrofuturism. The authors were inspired by Afro-rithms from the Future to create this Miro-based ideation and analysis exercise. The goal is to use this as a jumping off point. to inspire designers to consider how speculative environmental and societal tensions can inspire new ideas and bring new implications to life. Since its creation and initial testing in a Drexel university classroom, the authors have played the Cli-fi Futures game with design groups and at conferences and universities all over the country. They are happy to bring Cli-fi Futures to the IDSA Education Symposium and IDC attendees and to hear from the Industrial Design community how they see their classrooms and studios in the future. Attendees will leave with access to a Miro Template they may adapt for their own use.