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24 Hours of Awesome!

IDC 2020 will be divided into 6 tracks, each lasting 4 hours long. Each track will feature a series of 'main stage' presentations followed by a group of breakout sessions you can choose to attend based on your personal preference. Each track will end with a presentation by an IDSA Student Merit Award Winner and a final Keynote.

The entire event will be a continuous, non-stop presentation lasting a full 24 hours. Don't worry if you can't stay up 24 hours straight. All sessions will be recorded and made available to ticket holders!  All times are shown in US Eastern Daylight (Universal Coordinated Time, UTC -4). Grab a cup of coffee and let's have some fun!

Track 1

Thurs, Sept 17

12:00pm-4:00pm EDT

Track 2

Thurs, Sept 17

4:00pm-8:00pm EDT

Track 3

Thurs, Sept 17

8:00pm-12:00am EDT

Track 4

Fri, Sept 18

12:00am-4:00am EDT

Track 5

Fri, Sept 18

4:00am-8:00am EDT

Track 6

Fri, Sept 18

8:00am-12:00pm EDT

Breakout Sessions

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Panel Discussion:
Building Bridges into the Unknown

Moderator - Jason Belaire, IDSA

Moderator - Stephan Clambaneva, IDSA

Panelist - Kevin Bethune

Panelist - Dara Dotz

Panel Discussion: Building Bridges into the Unknown

IDSA Board members Jason P. Belaire and Stephan Clambaneva, joined by two other designers, will be revisiting the key points gleaned from this year’s wildly successful and inaugural IDSA Sustainability Deep Dive, with over 600 people tuning in from all over the world. The organizers will share their deep knowledge base across many different IDSA Special Interest Sections in which Industrial Designers have vested interest. They will reveal their strategic attempts to share with the world how IDSA is taking a stance on the importance of the triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit); how this will become a greater theme for IDSA; overarching initiatives; and how to continue with the Deep Dive format to discuss sustainable and circular design (virtual, in-person or a hybrid) each year until it is no longer needed.  
 

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Workshop:
Legal Contracts for Designers: (Almost) Everything you Need to Know 

Presenter - Joel Delman, IDSA

Legal Contracts for Designers: (Almost) Everything you Need to Know

 

Prior to Delman’s 26 years as a design consultant, he was a corporate lawyer. He has drafted and negotiated hundreds of NDAs, Service Agreements and Licensing/Royalty deals with clients ranging from Fortune 100s to tech startups. He knows the pitfalls and gotchas to watch out for, and the best practices to push for. 

 

Over the years Delman has frequently been asked to assist friends and colleagues with their contract issues and knows how many designers are making potentially costly—very costly—mistakes in their legal relationships with clients daily. This workshop will help to ensure that you not only understand what's at stake but know how to negotiate smart agreements going forward.

Workshop:
KeyShot Essentials 

Presenter - Karim Merchant

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KeyShot Essentials

A wide look at KeyShot’s powerful visualizing capabilities, from basic lighting to advanced material applications. This hour-long session will introduce you to the Material Graph, advanced materials such as multilayered optics, RealCloth and Fuzz, as well as lighting solutions and the incredibly useful KeyShot Cloud Library.

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Breakout:
Your Product Story: Sketching to Communicate

 Presenter- Spencer Nugent

Your Product Story: Sketching to Communicate


Join Spencer Nugent and learn to enhance your product storytelling techniques using a few simple approaches to breaking down complex stories and product experiences into bite-sized chunks that can be easily visualized. Spencer will show examples of his prior work as well as techniques working digitally and on paper to capture and communicate key moments in your product experience.

Student Merit Award Winner

Keynote

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Jiani Zeng, S/IDSA

Graduate SMA Winner

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Proudly supported by SolidWorks

Jiani Zeng is an industrial designer, engineer, and researcher working at the intersection of consumer product design and technology. Her work explores new design opportunities beyond the current manufacturing methods and materials such as soft robotics and multi-material 3D printing.  

Jiani's work has been recognized by top international design awards programs like IDEA and Red Dot. Her designs have been featured in ARTS THREAD, CHI, and Milan Design Week. She holds a BEng in Product Design and Manufacturing and is a current student in the Integrated Design and Management (IDM) program at MIT. 

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Ralf Groene

VP Design Windows and Devices, Microsoft

Insanely Human

Presenting from Seattle, WA (US)

Insanely Human 

Ralf Groene leads the Devices and Windows Design Team at Microsoft. Ralf and his team practice design as a conversation between makers and users through the form of materials, objects, symbols, and interfaces.


Including a view beyond the object is one of the core principles of the Microsoft Design Team. They create products for over a billion users around the globe and are obsessed with the idea of empowering humans through the things they make.


Ralf’s talk is a journey through the culture, the making process, and the people of the Microsoft Design Team.

Track 1 - Thursday, September 17

12:00pm - 4:00pm EDT (UTC -4)

 

 

Emcee - Kristine Arth

Founder & Creative Director, Lobster Phone

Hosting from San Francisco, CA (US)

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'Main Stage' Presentions

Track 1

Design for Collective Post-Trauma

In this talk, Alain will explore the science of fear on the human psyche and the power of the collective ego, and what happens when society's state of mind overtakes individual experiences. He’ll argue that the collective trauma the COVID crisis and the killing of George Floyd has left behind will be the most powerful determinant of our ability to get back to work. And finally, drawing from science, psychology, historical and cultural examples, Alain will identify the ways in which brands, businesses and people alike can begin to navigate our collective trauma and changing sense of self and each other as we begin to heal.

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Alain Sylvain

CEO, Sylvain Labs

Design for Collective Trauma

Presenting from New York, NY (US)

Speculative Characters for Visual Inflection

In the age of emojis, type and image work in tandem to bolster our typographic voices, conveying our wide range of emotions. What if, in lieu of relying on smiley-faces and eggplants to make our point, new punctuation could formally articulate the meaning of a message as conveyed through gesture and expression? Much like written music relies on specific symbols to designate key, volume, pacing and pauses, new letterforms—inspired by facial expressions, hand gestures, and metaphors—could better inform our visual inflection. Engaging with design as a medium for inquiry, these speculative characters aim to supplement our existing typefaces, attempting to make the rich complexities of verbal conversation visible. Introducing these characters while citing and celebrating their historic predecessors, this presentation prompts a larger discussion: what is the role of speculative design in typography, and how do these pursuits advance communication?

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Mia Cinelli

Assistant Professor of Art Studio and Digital Design at the University of Kentucky

Speculative Characters for Visual Inflection

 

Presenting from Lexington, KY (US)

Design is DNA

Design at its surface provides recognizability and differentiation for a brand to the outside world and the people that it impacts. But the root of design is based on communicating an authentic, purpose-driven view to a brand’s soul, and that is far more complex but much more meaningful. How that soul is defined and shaped, and what the resulting impact is to the teams and companies that create it, is what we’ll dive into in “Design is DNA.”

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Demetrius Romanos 

SVP of Design & Development at Ergobaby

 

Design is DNA

 

 

Presenting from Long Beach, CA (US)

'Main Stage' Presentions

Başak Altan, IDSA

Design Strategist & Educator

 

Organic Design Education for Circular Economy

Presenting from San Francisco, CA (US)

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Organic Design Education for Circular Economy

This paper reviews desired factors and systemic influences to cultivate a thriving setting for organic design education to prepare design students for a circular
economy. It reviews faculty-driven initiatives adopted in a sustainable and social impact
design studio where aspects of the organic educational setting were integrated. The paper concludes with the final results of these practices.

James Rudolph

Associate Professor of Design, Notre Dame

 

Bootstrapping Leadership Through Design

Presenting from Saint Joseph, MI (US)

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Bootstrapping Leadership Through Design

Research into the current state of design education has suggested a rather negative outlook, including a dated educational model, poor academic rigor, and sub-par scholarly achievement. One of the more alarming findings point to the relative failure of design students to attain the academic and industry success of their peers in business, medicine, and law (Meyer & Norman, 2020).  Why are design students not attaining the level of leadership gained by their business, engineering, and marketing peers? What’s missing from the curriculum that would enable more effective and successful industry leaders graduating from design programs? These research questions are investigated in several steps.

Raja Schaar, IDSA

Program Director at Drexel University's Westphal College of Media Arts & Design

(presenting with Chris Baeza)

 

Using Design Fiction to Teach Ethics in Design

Presenting from Philadelphia, PA (US)

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Using Design Fiction to Teach Ethics in Design

How do we teach Design in the face of an ethical awakening when issues of climate change are complicated by political turmoil, social injustice, and food insecurity; where advances in technology come laden with concerns over surveillance, data privacy, equity, and dependence? What if designers were less concerned with driving the economy, but instead designing a better planet? What if design education pushed students to identify problems that don’t exist yet by connecting their understanding of history, society, technology, and design to provoke, interrogate, and shape the future by grounding themselves in the study of ethics and design futures? How can the context and concepts of design fictions allow students space to conceptualize, explore, and critique design ideas through an ethical lens?

Başak Altan, IDSA, James Rudolph and Raja Schaar, IDSA

 

Q&A Session

Moderated by Aziza Cyamani

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Q&A Session

Immediately following the presentations of Başak Altan, IDSA, James Rudolph and Raja Schaar, IDSA, Aziza Cyamani will moderate a Q&A session.

Sheng-Hung Lee, IDSA

Designer + Engineer

(presenting with John Liu)

 

Experimenting With Design Thinking and System Engineering Methodologies

Presenting from Cambridge, MA (US)

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Experimenting With Design Thinking and System Engineering Methodologies


The paper explores the history of two methodologies: “Design Thinking” as shaped by the Industrial Design community and “Systems Engineering” which was developed by NASA and government-led R&D. How can these two methodologies that evolved from radically different environments be combined to tackle systemic challenges that our society faces today? The paper explores the possibilities for human-centered system design and introduces new frameworks that can help designers evolve their craft for the decades ahead.

Breakout Sessions

Panel Discussion: Adapting on the Fly, COVID-19 & Industrial Design Education?

Moderaor - Aziza Cyamani

Panelist - Mekin Elcioglu

Panelist - Mike Elwell

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Panel Discussion: Adapting on the Fly, COVID-19 & Industrial Design Education

We are living through a time of constant change due to the global pandemic and the design industry continues to adapt to these changes. What role does academia play? How has Industrial Design education adjusted to the global pandemic? In times when students and professors are working under unprecedented disruptions, how can we provide a meaningful educational environment? How can we support adaptive collaborative research and development through setbacks? How can our academic-industry collaboration model facilitate a new approach and lead the way? What are the experiences we can learn from and build upon, fostering DESIGN EXCHANGE across academia and industry? Join us for an actionable discussion!

Panel Discussion: Design Exchange, Crossing Disciplines & Professions

Moderator - Keith Instone

Panelist - Louise R Manfredi, PhD, IDSA

Panelist - Sarah McNabb

Panelist - Eric Schneider

Panelist - Michael Barrett

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Panel Discussion: Design Exchange, Crossing Disciplines & Professions

Interdisciplinary collaboration is crucial in the design industry, so why don’t we teach that way more often in higher education? Starting with case studies of two successful collaborations in industrial design education, with occupational therapy and with engineering, we will explore a variety of issues. 

How do the various lenses on “users” overlap and complement each other to prepare students for industry success? How do you overcome academic silos to create and maintain an interdisciplinary program? How does the educational experience change? And what foundations of ID education need to change to support these better ways of learning?

Panel Discussion: A Classic Debate: Is Grad School Worth It?

Moderator - Carly Hagins, IDSA

Panelist - Benjamin Bush, IDSA

Panelist - Derek Cascio

Panelist - Hector Silva

Panelist - Rebecca Ngola

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A Classic Debate: Is Grad School Worth It?

We’ve heard it plenty of times: “nobody goes to grad school for design.” But is it true? And even if it’s not true, is going to graduate school worth it? What makes it worth it (or not?) This panel will bring together professionals with a variety of experiences to duke it out, debate-club style, with plenty of time and opportunities for audience participation. Statements will be prepared, and rebuttals will be encouraged.

Student Merit Award Winner

Keynote

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Sawyer Alcazar-Hagen, S/IDSA

West District Undergraduate SMA Winner

University of Oregon

Proudly supported by SolidWorks

Sawyer Alcazar-Hagen is a student at the University of Oregon – Portland Campus, currently pursuing a bachelor of fine arts degree in product design. Sawyer was born in Loveland, CO and raised in Bend, OR.   “​​​​​​​My greatest enjoyment derives from making things for others and making people smile through the work I create,” Sawyer says. “After five years of design school at the University of Oregon, it has become my mission to create a better future.  Like Bill Nye says, ‘Leave the world better than you found it.’”

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Owen Foster

Co-founder and Director of Aether Global Learning and SHiFT Design Camp

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John McCabe

Director of Strategy, Aether Learning

You're part of the Zombie Apocalypse: It's not your fault. It's mine.

Co-Presenting from Atlanta, GA (US)

You're part of the Zombie Apocalypse: It's not your fault. It's mine.  

Join us for a lively debate covering trends in education, student needs, industry expectations, and institutional capabilities. This conversation will be a fun dialogue that is fueled by our over 30 years of public, private, and non-traditional educational experience. We will embrace diverse perspectives, fill any gaps we find along the way, and envision a future of learning where we aren't aimlessly following the masses looking for brains.

Co-Presenting from Chattanooga, TN (US)

Track 2 - Thursday, September 17

IDSA Education Symposium

4:00pm - 8:00pm EDT (UTC -4)

 

 

Emcee - Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness, IDSA

Assistant Professor Industrial Design, Iowa State University

Hosting from Ames, IA (US)

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Track 2

Ali Murtaza

Head of Service Design, IDEATE Innovation

 

Let's Not Save the Next Billion

Presenting from Lahore, Pakistan

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Let's Not Save the Next Billion

We’re taught that human-centered design champions the individual, taking into account the infinite ways in which people think, need, and behave differently. Within both academia and practice, this holds true—but only as long as we’re designing for ourselves. As soon as we design for the “other,” those whom we consider to be inherently different, what we’ve learned goes out of the proverbial window. We plan to bestow design upon the next billion people, as if our work were a gift from us to them. But each billion begins with a ‘one,’ and each one has a plan for themselves.

Lada Gorlenko

Director of UX Research at Smartsheet

Design a Team you Love

Presenting from Seattle, WA (US)

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Design a Team You Love

In the world obsessed with great customer experiences, we often overlook the experiences of people who should matter to the business most—our own teams. How might we apply the best practices of human-centered design to designing rich and fulfilling experiences of our own teams? Whether you are an established leader, a new manager or a rank-and-file teammate, this talk will help you design your team’s experiences for better rapport, collaboration and, ultimately, a strong sense of belonging.

Workshop:
Google Digital Wellbeing Toolkit

Moderator - Jayeon Kim, Google

Moderator - Kate Lockhart, Google

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Workshop: The Google Digital Wellbeing Toolkit

In today’s digital-first environment, designing product experiences for digital wellbeing is a must. Join Google’s user experience practitioners to learn research-backed principles and practices that you can use to support people’s wellbeing. This hands-on workshop will explain how Google defines digital wellbeing, then invite you to apply the UX principles through interactive design activities. Participants will walk away with a deeper understanding of the importance of digital wellbeing and practical tools that they can put into action right away.

Student Merit Award Winner

Keynote

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Anne McDonald, S/IDSA

South District Undergraduate SMA Winner

North Carolina State University

Proudly supported by SolidWorks

Anne McDonald is a senior industrial design student at North Carolina State University. Anne’s passions for industrial design come from the goal to help others, no matter what the platform might be. She is excited to continue using her industrial design skillset in the medical industry when she graduates. When Anne is not designing, you will most likely run into her at a concert downtown or hiking in the woods.

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Arielle Assouline-Lichten

Principal / Founder, Slash Objects

Unexpected Juxtapositions and Thoughtful Design

Presenting from New York, NY (US)

Unexpected Juxtapositions and Thoughtful Design

Adjacencies create new meanings as we seek to redefine our material world and the value of detritus. Slash Objects aims to reframe the conversations around waste and introduce new ways to imagine physical products in a world where our materials matter most. The work started with discarded tires—a global byproduct of society which creates a huge amount of waste. In this waste, we saw possibilities. We set out to imagine new lifecycles where mundane materials such as this one could be diverted from landfills and be put back to productive use. Beauty takes on new meaning as a form of activism driving forward change. Thoughtful design rethinks the role of the designer into that of thought leader, proposing new futures and, at the same time, building them.

Track 3 - Thursday, September 17

8:00pm - 12:00am EDT (UTC -4)

 

 

Emcee - Spencer Nugent

Founder & Designer, Sketch-A-Day.com

Hosting from Salt Lake City, UT (US)

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'Main Stage' Presentions

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Ayana Patterson, IDSA

Luxury CMF + Form Specialist

 

Luxury State of Mind

Presenting from New York City, NY (US)

Luxury state of mind

A powerful conversation about elevating design with aesthetics and consciousness.

Breakout Sessions

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Panel Discussion:

Real Designers Ship

 

Moderator - Michael DiTullo, IDSA

Panelist - Cia Mooney, IDSA

Panelist - Howard Nuk

Panelist - Jason Mayden

Panel Discussion: Real Designers Ship

Industrial designer Michael DiTullo, IDSA will bring his concept of Real Designers Ship to the IDC 2020 as a panel discussion, joined by three other designers who have all worked with global brands to bring products to mass production at affordable prices for everyday people. They will discuss the difference between speculative work and design meant for people, what it takes to bring something to production and the balance we have to strike to get the most advanced yet acceptable solutions into production.

Breakout: Creating an Unshakable Brand

Presenter - Kristine Arth

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Breakout: Creating an Unshakable Brand

An unshakable brand has unique attributes that make it memorable and even loved for no apparent reason. In this session I’ll break down the steps I use to create character-driven brands with a strategic foundation. We’ll cover how strategy leads to purposeful design choices that build brands of substance and curiosity.

Track 3
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Tim Allen

VP, Design at Airbnb

Design for Belonging

Presenting from San Francisco, CA (US)

Design for Belonging

Customer expectations have skyrocketed across almost every business category as a result of choice, innovation and technology. Products and services not only have to be pragmatically useful but also culturally relevant, authentic and inclusive. You can’t get the type of innovation needed to differentiate at scale with more of the same: the same people, working in the same way, with the same biases. You have to mix wildly divergent views, paths and approaches to really see business challenges in new ways that truly connect people. Join Tim Allen to learn how design is being used to deliver on Airbnb’s promise to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere.

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Breakout: Navigating Towards Success in China

Co-presenter - Chris Hosmer, IDSA

Co-presenter - Dylan Ren, I/IDSA

Breakout: Navigating Towards Success in China

Design-Driven Product Commercialization and Go-To-Market Partnership are core competencies of the 21st century Designer Founder’s tool set. In this talk, Dylan Ren and Chris Hosmer describe the innovative end-to-end entrepreneurship platform called Tipping Point, a cross-border innovation incubator strategically aligned with IDSA and key partners in Design, Brand Marketing, E-Commerce Operation, Channel Operation and Investment Management.

Felix Heck

Head of Office, Samsung Design Europe 

Design for Resonance 

Presenting from London, England

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Design for Resonance

Whatever we are facing—from climate change and shifting identities to advancements in AI—the next 10 years may be some of humanity’s most defining. Product innovations are not only about better tomorrows, but also to help you picture, forecast and prepare for life, 10 or 20 years later.


The ethos of Samsung design philosophy, 'Be Bold. Resonate with Soul,' is not a visual metaphor. The role of design today goes beyond the physical or the digital realm, and it must take into consideration our surroundings and our well-being. Designs must help people understand how to better experience the advantages of technology we're offering.


Ethical considerations have always played a key role in Samsung Design, but the development of scientific knowledge and technology have deepened awareness of the ethical dimensions of early design decisions.
Design shines when those decisions integrate seamlessly. When the interaction between people and technology is designed well, the result is humane, and in perfect resonance.

Breakout: Patterns of My Mind

Presenter - Chandrashekhar Wyawashare

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Breakout: Patterns of My Mind

Each of us face different challenges, at different times and in different ways, based both on our biology and our unique cultural upbringing. No two people think exactly the same way, because no two people have lived exactly the same lives. We are all a product of the different thinking patterns that emerged as a result of our experience of interacting with reality. In fact, these different thinking patterns (mostly produced from our mental habit loops) are, in large part, what makes you, you, and me, me. The identity we each have is born from the convergence of all of these patterns. They create what we call our subjective experience.

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Charles Johnson, IDSA

Global Director Innovation, PUMA SE

Design for Humanistic Values

Presenting from Herzogenaurach, Germany

Design for Humanistic Values 

Having spent 30 years designing for human performance, Charles will talk about his transformation toward designing for humanity. He will cover aspects of his personal and professional journey alongside current events, which have led him to a re-energized design ethos. 

Track 4 - Friday, September 18

12:00am - 4:00am EDT (UTC -4)

 

 

Emcee - Kristine Arth

Founder & Creative Director, Lobster Phone

Hosting from San Francisco, CA (US)

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'Main Stage' Presentions

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Javeria Masood

Head of Solutions Mapping, UNDP Pakistan

 

(Deep) Listening in the Time of COVID-19

Presenting from Islamabad, Pakistan

(Deep) Listening in the Time of COVID-19

A pandemic came out of nowhere, halted the entire globe, and highlighted all our weak links. It is requiring a complete systemic restructuring; it would be unwise to completely waste this crisis and not mold it through foresight and empathy. So how do we do that if we can no longer go to people? As designers, one of our strongest tools is listening to people and being empathetic. We are having to re-evaluate some of our design practices, especially in the space of participatory work. Previously, empathy was being with people; now, if you care, you maintain distance. Let’s re-write the rules of research.

Breakout Sessions

Student Merit Award Winner

Keynote

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Jessica Monteleone, S/IDSA

Northeast District Undergraduate SMA Winner

Jefferson University

Proudly supported by SolidWorks

Jessica Monteleone is senior industrial design student at Jefferson University (previously Philadelphia University), with an inherent curiosity about the world that leads her to create and discover. “I believe design is most successful when it makes an impact,” Jessica says. “It should always solve a problem or meet a need. I want to design solutions that are accessible for as many people as possible, and make daily life easier or more enjoyable in some way.” 

Track 4
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Lani Adeoye

Designer & Founder, Studio-Lani

Design as a Mediation Tool

Presenting from Lagos, Nigeria

Design as a Mediation Tool

I will share how I use design as a mediation tool in a few different ways, using examples to illustrate, in terms of connecting the Intangible & Tangible, Art, Craft & Design, Tradition & Modernity. 

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Alisan Atvur

Senior User Research Lead at Device Research & Development at Novo Nordisk 

Design for the Empathic Healthcare Innovator: Advancing the Role of User Research in Pharmaceutical R&D 

Presenting from Copenhagen, Denmark

Design for the Empathic Healthcare Innovator: Advancing the Role of User Research in Pharmaceutical R&D 

Novo Nordisk UX researchers analyzed the practice improvements they implemented over a 5 year period to understand how these changes affected the quality and impact of user research within device R&D innovation activities. The findings were organized into 5 thematic categories which reflect fundamental values of a constantly improving research practice. This presentation concludes with perspectives for the future of design research for designing new therapies and services.

Breakout: ​Mobility Experience

 

Presenter - Yogesh Dandekar

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Mobility Experience

India’s transport infrastructure is aggressively in catchup mode. Not just cities but the whole country is underserved in its demand for mobility. I decided to focus on this domain of work due to its deep, purposeful connection to improving lives and having a large-scale impact. The magic words “travel experience” are tough to define for a mobility system with diverse touch points. Mobility projects are still planned and implemented as infrastructure projects. To make these projects focus on the user and their trip is a formidable task, as the definition of design has a different paradigm here.

Breakout: Designing Design Education

 

Co-Presenter - Hector Silva

Co-Presenter - Dominic Montante

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Designing Design Education

Have you felt disappointed with your design education, ever questioned the value of what you are learning, or from whom you are learning? Your intuition may be reflective of a wider reality. Design academia struggles to keep pace with and respond to the needs of design industry, and often produces students who are unprepared to enter the workforce. During their panel discussion, Hector and Dominic will investigate the opportunities for change in design education from the systemic level down to the responsibility of individual students and instructions and discuss their own upcoming initiative, Offsite, to tackle this problem.

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Lesley-Ann Noel, PhD

Associate Director for Design Thinking for Social Impact and Professor of Practice, Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking, Tulane University

An Island Girl's Critical Design Manifesto

Presenting from New Orleans, LA (US)

An Island Girl's Critical Design Manifesto 

In this talk, drawing on her own positionality as an Afro-Caribbean designer, Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel will share her personal manifesto that guides her practice as a design educator, hoping to challenge the audience to re-think design. Through this manifesto she aspires to practice liberatory, anti-oppressive and anti-hegemonic design, based on an emancipatory worldview, pluriversality, and critical utopias.  She will demonstrate what design education and practice can look like when it embraces multiple perspectives and is not centered around the assumption of a universal experience, whiteness or Westernness, sharing some of her own work, such as the Designer’s Critical Alphabet.

Track 5 - Friday, September 18

4:00am - 8:00am EDT (UTC -4)

 

 

Emcee - Jeevak Badve, FIDSA

Director of Strategic Growth, Sundberg-Ferar

Hosting from Detroit, MI (US)

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'Main Stage' Presentions

Breakout Sessions

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Panel Discussion:
The Lack of Diversity in the Furniture Design Industry 

Panelist - Jomo Tariku

Panelist - Marie Burgos

Panelist - Boa

Panelist - Marlon Darbeau

Panel Discussion: The Lack of Diversity in the Furniture Design Industry 

Black designers on creativity, representation & opportunities, education and activism

Student Merit Award Winner

Keynote

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Ellen Posch, S/IDSA

Central District Undergraduate SMA Winner

University of Cincinnati

Proudly supported by SolidWorks

Ellen Posch is excited to enhance the lives of others through design, whether it be through technology, lifestyle products, or home goods. She enjoys diversifying her experiences across the design industry.

Ellen is first in her class academically at DAAP. She has industry experience from six design internships, ranging from large corporations to design firms specializing in consumer technology. Her project, Cycle, was recently featured in Images magazine for innovative textile design. When she is not designing, she can be found doing handstands on a 10-meter diving platform, exploring, or practicing hobbies like cooking, skiing, surfing, and weightlifting.

Track 5
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Mark Prommel

Partner & Design Lead, Pensa

Design for Inconvenience

Presenting from New York, NY (US)

Design for Inconvenience 

I have designed products that are not built to last, made with plastics that have filled our oceans, and with heavy metals that have leached into and polluted our soil, and I have done this in service of… The Consumer. "Consumer." Design's dirty little word. We have been focused on "the consumer" since the dawn of our profession, and been "consumer-driven." But, that mindset has only driven us to the heights of convenience-driven consumption. It is time for a fundamental shift not necessarily in the way we design, but in the way we define, and understand, the people for whom we design. If designing for the consumer has brought us to the limits of convenience-driven consumption, perhaps a bit of thoughtful inconvenience might go a long way?

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Nicole McLaughlin

Designer, Nicole McLaughlin LLC

 

 

Power in Purpose

Presenting from Brooklyn, New York (US)

Power in Purpose

Designer Nicole McLaughlin discusses how curiosity and passion have given her works purpose and the ability to change people's perception of waste and sustainable design.

Workshop: Design for a Voice Enabled World

Co-Presenter -  Brielle Nickoloff

Co-Presenter -  Surya Vanka

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Design for a Voice Enabled World

Because voice user interfaces (VUIs) don’t require the use of hands, eyes, or even literacy, they empower humans in ways that have never been possible before. They unlock new scenarios and will become a part of virtually every hardware device. Yet, the average industrial designer has little understanding of how to seamlessly integrate voice in their products, as the processes for designing VUI’s are different from traditional ID processes. We have created a systematic, step-by-step Design Swarms approach and process maps that help industrial designers systematically think through VUI use cases and design hardware products with rich voice integration. By the end of this workshop, participants will have learned to define a minimally viable voice-enabled product, and will leave with a kit to apply in their own organizations.

Track 6 - Friday, September 18

8:00am - 12:00pm EDT (UTC -4)

 

 

Emcee - Spencer Nugent

Founder & Designer, Sketch-A-Day.com

Hosting from Salt Lake City, UT (US)

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'Main Stage' Presentions

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Jeanette Numbers

Co-founder and Design Principal, Loft

Design for Proactive Healthcare

Presenting from Providence, RI (US)

Design for Proactive Healthcare

What if wearables not only sensed the needs of the body but acted on them, by delivering interventions such as micropulses, heating and cooling, and more? As the market for wearables explodes and customers simultaneously get more protective of their data (and their physical, on-body space), the wearables of the future will need to do more than just monitor and report, taking on advanced capabilities that drive positive outcomes. Designers, technologists, and physicians have a shared responsibility to create products that can change lives for the better. In this presentation, Jeannette will explore the potential of wearables to shape the future of proactive healthcare—first by highlighting the intimate access wearables have to personal data, then diving deeper into the challenge of designing user/patient-centric devices, and finally, acknowledging the market potential for proactive wearables.

Breakout Sessions

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Panel Discussion: Where Are The Black Designers Follow Up

Moderator - Mitzi Okou

Panelist - Garrett Albury

Panelist - Raja Schaar, IDSA

Panelist - Roshannah Bagley

Panelist - Zariah Cameron

Panelist - Forest Young

Panel Discussion: Follow Up to the 1st Where Are The Black Designers event

Discussing the current work of the WATBD platform, feedback, community, and conversations post-conference. 

Workshop: KeyShot Studios & Farms

Part 1 - Studios: Workflow Tips & Tricks

Part 2 - Farms: Increase your render power with KeyShotFarms

Presenter - Brad Abelman

Presenter - Steve Seager

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Workshop: Keyshot Studios & Farms 

Keyshot Studios: Unlocking the power of Model Sets and Studios within KeyShot, and demonstrating how and why you should use these two features to help quickly showcase variations.

 

KeyshotFarms: Have you ever needed more KeyShot render power? KeyShotFarms provides hourly and longer term dedicated render farms for KeyShot users. Learn how easy using KeyShotFarms can be!

Student Merit Award Winner

Keynote

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Avery Saylor, S/IDSA

Midwest District Undergraduate SMA Winner

Purdue University

Proudly supported by SolidWorks

Avery Saylor is an industrial design student Purdue University. “I pride myself on my designs being well thought out, intuitive, and aesthetically pleasing,” she says. She enjoys the research side of industrial design and getting feedback from the users she is designing for to better understand their wants and needs. 

 

“To me, design is personal,” she continues. “I believe that when I am able to make a connection with the project I am working on and truly understand the needs of my users, I am able to come up with the best solution to their problem.”

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Jan Griffiths

Presenter & Founder, Gravitas Detroit

NOW Is the Time to Step Up and Lead!

Presenting from Detroit, MI (US)

NOW Is the Time to Step Up and Lead!

The fabric of normality has been ripped apart, we have been shaken to the core, and this has been both destabilizing and liberating. Our minds are open like never before and massive transformation is happening all around us. The way we work, how we work, and how we lead is changing. NOW is the time to lead for creativity and innovation. The question is...how?

Track 6
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