Joe Hebenstreit is the CEO of Shaper, a human-involved robotics company focused on dissolving barriers between human intuition and machine tool automation. Shaper’s Origin is a handheld CNC router that employs computer vision and real-time positional motor control to auto-correct for imprecise hand movements and enable entirely new fabrication possibilities. Prior to Shaper, Joe led the Product Design & Engineering team responsible for Glass hardware development at Google X. He began his engineering career in the automotive industry before earning his product development stripes at frog while tackling projects across a wide range of industries including medical devices, wearables, home appliances, industrial equipment and consumer electronics. His reputation for shepherding new technology out of the prototyping lab and into consumer products led him to Amazon’s Lab126 in its earliest days of hardware development. At Amazon, he helped usher enabling technologies like touch interfaces and front-lighting to generations of Kindle e-readers.

Andy Logan is the Founder and Creative Director at AWOL Company, a small but mighty Southern California-based product design agency. AWOL specializes in award-winning design that challenges assumptions, grows market share, and delights users. A veteran of California’s top consultancies, Andy’s 20-year design career resume includes both BMW/Designworks and frog design, leading creative teams to tackle challenges in the Consumer, Industrial, and Medical categories.

With a strategic design philosophy, he has helped businesses as varied as HP, Nike, John Deere, Proctor & Gamble, Turtle Beach, Welch Allyn, AutoDesk, and SanDisk better connect with their customers through amazing design. Most recently, he installed a kick-ass zip line in his backyard for his three daughters.

Gretchen spent the first part of her career in design consulting for firms like frog, Cooper, and LUNAR. Currently, she is head of design at PG&E, California’s largest energy company where she’s helping to build the energy company of the future. Previously, she led the design of the hardware and software of a next-generation surgical system and was VP of Product at GreatSchools.org.

Gretchen is a frequent speaker on design topics including the changing role of design in the age of artificial intelligence and bridging physical and digital design. Gretchen has also taught design methods and design thinking in a variety of settings including Stanford and UC Berkeley.

Her past clients include Virgin Records, Samsung, Johnson & Johnson, and Starbucks. Gretchen is a Bay Area native who left only long enough to get a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in History & Literature.

Early on, Kiefer started his career as a professional remodel contractor in Toronto, where he developed his skill using tools and equipment ranging from hand tools to large scale heavy machinery.

When Instagram was in its infancy, he started a page (@toolaholic) where he could discuss tools and techniques amongst the community to better the industry. This quickly blossomed into more detailed media and articles, landing him partnerships with some of the largest names in the industry. He currently works with leaders in power tools and construction products such as Milwaukee, Dewalt, Festool, Fein, Makita, and many more, developing and testing new tools and jobsite solutions. He also writes for publications such as Fine homebuilding and Canadian contractor magazine.

His media company serves an as outlet to show the world the latest in power tools, and also to product detailed content to help our younger generation learn more about tools and techniques.

Spencer Wright is a writer, operator, and mechanical designer living in New York City. At theprepared.org he runs a weekly newsletter on manufacturing, logistics, and the business of hardware product development. By day he works on industrial 3D printing software at nTopology.

With a formal education in English syntax, Spencer built his project management experience in construction, learned to machine and weld building custom bicycle frames, and cut his engineering teeth designing structural and actuator assemblies for robotic sliding doors.

Ti Chang is a design activist-entrepreneur and activist bridging modern design and activism. She is co-founder and VP of Design of CRAVE, a San Francisco-based company specializing in aesthetic pleasure products. Ti leads the design vision for the company’s full line of products which has won international design awards and has led CRAVE to mainstream partnerships with the likes of Nordstrom, MoMA Design Store, Goop, and Saint Laurent. 

Ti is best known for her design of the Vesper vibrator necklace in 2014, an iconic necklace that symbolizes female empowerment and creating conversations to normalize pleasure. 

Ti holds an M.A. in Design Products from the Royal College of Art in London and a B.S. in Industrial Design from the Georgia Institute of Technology. In 2021, Ti co-founded Design Allyship (designallyship.com) to provide anyone with actionable resources to improve the condition of historically marginalized designers in the industrial & product design industry. 

Ivy Ross is currently the Vice President of Design for the Hardware Product Area at Google. Previously, she was VP of Project Aura (Glass & Beyond) at Google and held executive positions ranging from head of product design and development to CMO and presidencies with several companies, including Calvin Klein, Swatch, Coach, Mattel, Art.com, Bausch & Lomb and Gap.

Ivy has been a contributing author to numerous books, including The Change Champion’s Field Guide and Best Practices in Leadership Development and Organizational Change. She has also been referenced in Ten Faces of Innovation, Rules of Thumb, and Unstuck, among other books. Ivy was the keynote speaker at the Nokia World Design Conference and Fortune Magazine’s Women Conference, and has been cited by Fast Company and Businessweek as “one of the new faces of Leadership.”

A renowned artist, her innovative metal work in jewelry is in the permanent collections of 12 international museums. A winner of the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts grant, Ivy has also received the Women in Design Award and Diamond International Award for her creative designs.

Ivy’s passion is human potential and relationships. She believes in the combination of art and science to make magic happen and bring great ideas and brands to life.

Jörg Student is an Executive Design Director based in IDEO’s Palo Alto location. He is passionate about exploring the intersection of design and engineering to elevate the human experience.

Whether designing chairs, fitness equipment, medical devices, windows, or multi-tools, Jörg believes that the best designs are developed through rapid, iterative prototyping while always empathizing with users. Since joining IDEO in 2005, Jörg has applied this approach for innovation across a diverse range of industries, including consumer products, healthcare, and technology. His work has been recognized with multiple design awards, including from Fast Company and IDSA. Jörg has also spent a year with IDEO.org, IDEO’s non-profit arm, to improve the lives of people in poor and vulnerable communities.

Outside of IDEO, Jörg enjoys experimenting with advanced origami-folding patterns and translating them into larger-scale structures and interactive, kinetic art pieces. He is the co-founder and lead artist of the art collective FoldHaus, whose sophisticated yet poetic art pieces have been shown at many festivals and museums, including Burning Man, the NY MoMA, the Exploratorium in SF, the Smithsonian in DC, The Kaneko in Omaha, and the Dubai d3 design district.

Jörg holds two Masters degrees—one in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Stuttgart, Germany, and another in Industrial Design and Engineering from the Royal College of Art in London.

Raja Schaar, MAAE, IDSA is an Assistant Professor of Product Design at Drexel University. She is an industrial designer, museum exhibition designer, and STEAM education evangelist. She is an active museum exhibition designer working with community organizations, National Parks, and museums all over the country.

Her interdisciplinary research focuses is on methods engaging girls and underrepresented minorities in STEM/STEAM through design and technology, innovation and entrepreneurship education, healthcare wearables, and biologically inspired design. Her current research collaborations include working with departments of Dance, Education, and computing to uncover STEAM identities in African American girls through the development of performance-driven wearable technology; developing pedagogy with Drexel’s Schools of Biomedical Engineering and Entrepreneurship to examine the role of clinical immersion on product innovation; and working with the college of Nursing to develop a pre-diagnostic wearable device for preeclampsia in low-resource communities.

Before joining Drexel's Product Design faculty, Raja taught at GA Tech in both the Colleges of Design and Engineering.

In addition to her career as an industrial designer and design educator, Raja has also served as the Coordinator of School Programs at the High Museum of Art, and the Director of Programs and Operations at Museum of Design Atlanta. Raja speaks on Industrial Design, STEAM and design education at conferences and workshops all over the US.

Ani Liu is a designer, experimental artist and speculative technologist working at the intersection of art & science. A recent member of MIT Media Lab, she creates research-based art that explores the social, cultural & emotional implications of emerging technologies.

Ani's work has been presented at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Asian Art Museum, MIT Museum, MIT Media Lab, Wiesner Gallery, Harvard University, and media channels such as VICE, Gizmodo, TED, FOX and WIRED.

In 2014-15 she lead the research program in Sensory Mediation at the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities, exploring how information visualization and augmented reality, can be harnessed to extend the human sensorium to redefine spatial experience. She taught as an Associate Instructor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she co-taught an advanced-level architectural studio called Architecture of Cultural Prosthetics: Tools for Communication and Expression in the Public Space with Krzysztof Wodiczko. She has served on numerous design panels at esteemed institutions including Dartmouth College, MIT, University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University.

Ani has a B.A. from Dartmouth College, a Masters of Architecture degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a Master of Science from MIT Media Lab. She is on the committee of Art Scholars at MIT. Ani continually seeks to discover the unexpected, through playful experimentation, intuition, and speculative storytelling. Her studio is based in New York City.

Chris Woebken is a designer, researcher and educator living and working in Brooklyn. Chris teaches at New York University’s Integrated Digital Media (IDM) program and he co-founded the Extrapolation Factory, a studio developing experimental methods for collaboratively prototyping, experiencing and impacting future scenarios. Chris's work was awarded the Core77 Design Award in the Speculative Design category, got nominated for the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year award and received the NYFA Fellowship in Digital/Electronic Arts. Chris's work has been exhibited at MoMA in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Design Museum in London. Chris holds an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art in London.

Dan Chen is a designer and engineer. He communicates his ideas through working prototypes, investigating new ways of approaching user interactions.

He has several degrees including a MAS from MIT, an MFA in digital media from RISD and a BFA in communication design from UConn. He has over 8 years of design experience and now works at Culture Robotics as senior engineer. Previous positions include MIT Lifelong Kindergarten as an industrial designer. Johnson & Johnson as Senior Interaction Designer. Senior Interaction Designer at IDEO.

His personal work has been featured in CNET, The Huffington Post, the verge, Engadget, Mashable and Daily Mail. Dan was invited as a speaker at TEDx Vienna on the future of intimacy in 2016. His work was exhibited in Vitra Design Museum, MAK Wien, Design Museum Gent & Ars Electronica.

Working in the realms of robotics, communication design, interaction design and product design, Dan explores the new ways of communication and human experience through working prototypes and storytelling, inviting a reflective evaluation and implication.

Susie Wise is the founder of the K12 Lab Network at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (a.k.a. the d.school). She founded the K12 Lab in 2007 to investigate the role that design thinking could play in the education sector. This work helped catalyze a national movement to use design thinking as an approach to project-based learning and a method for ed sector innovation. From 2012-2017 she led the team to create innovative professional development experiences for teachers, school leaders, and “edu innovators” that help them build their creative confidence and make experiments happen. Recent programs include School Retool, a fellowship for school leaders, now operating in 18 cities, and the Shadow A Student challenge, launched in 2016 with more than 3500 school leaders participating. Susie is also a co-founder of Urban Montessori Charter School in Oakland, California.

Susie’s early professional experiences include developing educational multimedia for education technology startups and educational programming for Bay Area non-profits including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco International Film Festival, The Exploratorium, and the Bay Area Discovery Museum. She has a PhD in Learning Sciences and Technology Design from Stanford University and a BA in History from the University of Pennsylvania.

Kareem Collie is a designer, systems thinker and educator. Currently, he is the Director of Design and Creativity at the Rick and Susan Sontag Center for Collaborative Creativity at the Claremont Colleges and Clinical Professor of Visual Communication at Harvey Mudd College. He is a former Teaching Fellow at Stanford University's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (a.k.a the d.school) where he developed workshops and courses in human-centered design. His research focus is the intersection of design, visual communication, and critical thinking. He spent the first half of his career in branding and creative strategy. He received his MA in Media and Cultural Studies from NYU in 2016 and his BFA in Communication Design from Pratt Institute in 2001.

Tom Maiorana is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Design at UC Davis where he focuses on product design, design thinking, and prototyping. Tom’s research focuses on how low-resolution prototypes can help designers explore the human experience of interacting with complex systems. He is a Fellow at the John Muir Institute for the Environment where he uses design thinking methods to inform the strategy and development of the OneClimate initiative. Tom is also the founder of Red Cover Studios, which specializes in product development and innovation strategy and uses prototyping as a central practice in work ranging from interaction design to fashion to organizational change. Red Cover Studios helped to conceptualize and launch the Hive at the Claremont Colleges and Denison University’s forthcoming Design Lab. Tom regularly teaches at Stanford University’s d.school.

Tom has an MFA in Design from Stanford University and a Bachelor of the Arts from Vassar College.

Jennifer is a writer, educator and communications strategist. Her consulting firm, Content Matters, helps creative businesses thrive by defining their voice and learning how to communicate effectively with diverse audiences. Prior to consulting, Jennifer worked for Pentagram, Columbia CNMTL and the AIGA. She has been published in The New York Times, Core77, Against the Grain, as well as a variety of trade publications. As an educator Jennifer led Art Access II, an initiative designed to increase museum attendance among under-served communities through education and community outreach. She has taught at Parsons and FIT, and is currently on faculty in the SVA Products of Design program where she teaches design and social impact.

George co-founded Greater Good Studio to use design to heal, to be just, to be restorative, Previously, he spent seven years at a global innovation firm before being hired as the first human-centered designer at the Chicago Transit Authority. Since founding Greater Good he guides clients and teams through complex projects that honor reality, create ownership, and build power. He speaks frequently across the US and internationally. George holds the position of Full Professor (Adj) at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Marc Dones has worked in program and policy development for their entire career. Currently their work focuses on the development and integration of equity oriented policies and program procedures across a number of projects. In this role Marc also leads the SPARC (Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities) Initiative. SPARC is currently focused on reframing homelessness response systems through an anti-racist lens. Additionally, Dones worked with a small team of C4 staff to build a training institute for over 300 provider agencies funded to work with individuals living with substance use disorders. Prior to joining C4, Dones served as a Program Manager in the MA Executive Office of Health and Human services where they assisted in the development and implementation of Governor Deval Patrick’s youth violence reduction program, the Safe and Successful Youth Initiative. Additionally, Marc served as the policy manager for the Massachusetts Special Commission on Unaccompanied Homeless Youth.

Sabiha Basrai is a co-owner of Design Action Collective — a worker-owned cooperative dedicated to serving social justice movements with art, graphic design, and web development. She is co-coordinator of the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, where she works with racial justice organizers on international solidarity campaigns. Sabiha is also part of the Center for Political Education advisory board, an affiliate trainer with Race Forward, and a faculty member in the University of San Francisco's Department of Art and Architecture.

Studio Gorm was founded in 2007 by John Arndt and Wonhee Jeong Arndt.

As professors in the Product Design department at the University of Oregon, they apply their insightful academic research on culture, history and technology to refocus modern design through the prism of time, exploring the transformation of objects and ideas as they evolve to fit the demands and expectations of modern life.

As designers of functional objects, they draw from their background in sculpture and craft to create works that balance function and aesthetics. Their methods are deeply rooted in the act of physical making where an object’s true form evolves out of an experimental constructive approach to design.

Chris Liljenberg Halstrøm was born 1977 and lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. Halstrøm mainly works with furniture and smaller objects for the home always taking a starting point in everyday situations. She finds it interesting to work with familiarity and neutrality as topics in order to create new expressions and purposes for objects. This applies whether working with companies such as Skagerak, Frama and +Halle or with objects for exhibitions. In 2017 she received the Three Year Work grant from The Danish Arts forundation / Statens Kunstfond.

She established her own studio in 2007 after graduating from The Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen with prior studies in Stockholm, Sweden and Berlin, Germany.

In addition to running her own studio, Halstrøm is part of the duo INCLUDED MIDDLE with textile designer Margrethe Odgaard. Together, they design furniture and objects from the two simple questions; what if colour and pattern are seen as something suggesting form and what if form is seen as something suggesting pattern.

Christopher Specce is a designer and teacher working in Providence, Rhode Island. His practice spans from commercially oriented product design to creating experimental, one a kind of objects. In addition to serving as associate professor in the Department of Furniture Design at Rhode Island School of Design, his professional experiences include projects across the furniture and consumer product industries. Prior to joining the full-time faculty at RISD, he was lead designer at the consultancy Observatory, where he contributed to projects for clients including Herman Miller and P&G.

With a belief that designed objects make an important contribution to culture, he explores the various ways that designers can embed objects with meaning. His studio practice features extensive use of digital design and fabrication tools alongside hands-on work with materials to create works that are at once mundane, delightful, modest, and forthright.

Jamie Wolfond is a Canadian designer based in Toronto and New York. Jamie's work explores the ways in which manufacturing can influence the design process. Often centered around one material or production method, the objects Jamie designs expose new applications for pre-existing manufacturing techniques.

In 2014, Jamie Wolfond founded Good Thing, the New York and Toronto based manufacturer of furniture, lighting and everyday objects.

Thom Fougere Studio was founded in the fall of 2015 in Winnipeg, Canada. The studio works within various fields of art and design, but with a focus on furniture and products for the home. All projects are characterized by careful research into materiality, history, aesthetics, and functionality. The studio offers full creative direction, furniture and interior design services.

Thom Fougere (1987) studied architecture at the University of Manitoba before working in furniture and product design. In 2011, after his studies in Architecture, he was appointed Creative Director of Canadian furniture design house EQ3 at the age of 24. There he initiated a rebranding of the company including a transformation of the product line, graphic design, photography, interiors and the architectural design of stores. Thom Fougere continues to investigate how we live and interact with objects in our homes, creating pieces that are both subtle and archetypal in form. His works have been shown internationally at the design fairs in Milan, Stockholm, New York, and Toronto.

Joana Kelly is the COO at Small Planet, where she helps teams create award-winning mobile products for clients like Disney, NPD Group, and Planned Parenthood.

Her work has earned the Communication Arts Magazine​ Award of Excellence and the Fast​ Company Innovation By Design Award, been featured on the App Store and Google Play, and ​ been downloaded millions of times.

Joana has guest lectured at the School of Visual Arts and taught at Parsons The New School for Design. She received her undergraduate degree from New York University and holds an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons The New School for Design.

I'm a digital product designer specializing in high-touch mobile applications.

At the digital forefront for 25 years, Leslie started in information architecture at Nicholson NY, collaborating on award-winning CD-ROMs, museum kiosks, and early websites. Later, living in Madrid, she was a UX consultant for European technology giant Indra, on e-commerce and e-government projects.

As a former Assistant Director of User Experience at digital agency MRY, Leslie developed experience strategies and designed numerous user-centered interfaces for large websites and mobile platforms. Clients included Mass General Hospital, National Grid, Penguin, Google, Nestlé, MasterCard, Moleskine, and Johnson & Johnson.

Leslie is currently an Associate Partner at C&G Partners, leading experience design and media production for interactives, exhibits, and websites for museums, educational institutions, and non-profits. Her focus on user-centered design, human-interest stories, history, and culture motivate both her professions as a UX specialist and video producer, giving her the variety she loves in life. Leslie holds a bachelor's degree in graphic design, summa cum laude, from the University of Cincinnati.

Yumi Endo is a Japanese native, New York-based designer with a passion for art, design and technology.

She has previously worked as a design consultant at frog design in NYC, where she created meaningful product experiences for many internationally acclaimed clients including GE, Comcast, Nokia, Microsoft, Bloomberg, United Nations OCHA(Office for the coordination of humanitarian aids) and Rockefeller Foundation.

She currently works for United Nations OCHA’s humanitarian data sharing platform as a lead designer.

She is also an owner/creator of a jewelry brand, Cut by Yumi Endo which has been showcased in international art/design conventions including Maison et Objet in Paris, International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in NYC and Tokyo Design Week in Japan.

Yumi often likes to integrate three-dimensional effects in her 2D designs, creating unique visual and tangible experience.

Yumi holds a Master of Fine Arts in Design + Technology from Parsons the New School for Design and earned a Bachelor of Design with an honors degree in Product and Graphic Design from University of New South Wales, Australia.

Zach Kaplan is the founder and CEO of Inventables, the leader in 3D carving. A maker his whole life, he is on a mission to ignite digital manufacturing world wide and provide everyone with ambition a way to get started. Inventables flagship products Easel, Carvey, and X-Carve are used by a new wave of makers carving everything from circuit boards to skate boards. Named a “modern Leonardo” by the Museum of Science and Industry and a 40 under 40 by Crain’s Chicago Business, his dream is to create a world with 2 million digital manufacturers that have raving fans, not just customers.

Carl Bass serves on the boards of Autodesk, Built Robotics, Formlabs, Planet, Zendesk and Zoox and serves as a special adviser to the CEO of Alphabet. During his 24 year tenure at Autodesk, he held a series of executive positions including president and chief executive officer, chief technology officer and chief operating officer. Bass co-founded Ithaca Software, which was acquired by Autodesk in 1993. Bass also serves on the boards of directors of Zendesk Inc. and Planet; on the board of trustees of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Art Center College of Design, and California College of the Arts; and on the advisory boards of Cornell Computing and Information Science, UC Berkeley School of Information, and UC Berkeley College of Engineering.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Cornell University. Bass spends his time exploring the intersection of art, robotics and machine learning

As Director of Industrial Design at Stanley Black and Decker, Jason's role is to provide global leadership in the definition, design, and development of industry leading power tools and outdoor power equipment.

Jason has been a catalyst, integrating new technology to support adjacent design functions all with a goal to optimize the user experience. These efforts further enhance and differentiate the strong brands of Stanley Black and Decker. Prior to working for Stanley Black and Decker, Jason started his career at Canadian Design Consultancy DW Product Development, working with and supporting various clients across a diverse set of markets and industries.

Jason has been recognized with several design awards, most recently receiving a 2015 IDSA IDEA Bronze award for DEWALT’s first entry into Professional Outdoor Equipment.

Porter Whitmire has 20 years of product design, product development, and innovation management experience. Currently, he serves as the VP of Innovation and New Business Development at TTI Power Equipment. Porter has developed over 200 different products in many different categories, including power tools, lawn and garden products, electronic devices, lifestyle products, grills, and smartphone products and apps. In 2014, Porter founded the ION program at TTI as part of the company’s open innovation initiative. The Innovation Outreach Network seeks innovations from within TTI, from universities and private companies, and also the inventor community. When not innovating for TTI, Porter enjoys family time, mountain biking, and woodworking.

Chi-An is a Creative Director and Co-founder of Rice Creative, a Vietnam based brand consultancy. As a true multicultural individual, with an Italian father and French-Vietnamese mother, Chi-An speaks 4 languages and has lived in 5 countries including a major stint of 10 years in the UK. Wanting to get back to his Vietnamese roots, he made the move back to the country where he spent the early years of his childhood. Chi-An worked at Lowe Vietnam and helped them set up the branding department. After a few years in Advertising he felt it was time to make a move back to Branding & Design and co-founded Rice Creative in 2011. Having won multiple international awards with Rice, such as Red Dot, Pentawards, A’Design, Graphis, The Dieline, and Type Directors Club to name a few, Chi-An was invited to take part in the world's most renowned creative awards in London, D&AD. He sat as part of the Branding Jury together with the creative directors of Apple & Moving Brands, judging some of the best work the world had to offer.

Chuong Pham is the creative director and co-founder of Kaarem, a design and production studio based in Saigon and New York City. Prior to Kaarem, Chuong worked as a mechanical engineer. In 2013, he founded Kaarem with Kathy Minh Bach and launched a women’s line designed and produced entirely in their studio in Saigon. The studio focuses on blending contemporary designs with hand-crafted details.

Gregory Jewett is a co-founder of ATIQ, a retail shop based in Saigon specializing in art and design objects. ATIQ stocks a curated range of products including craft objects, prints, furniture and home decor collected from various countries around Asia. ATIQ also displays a collection of artwork from a selection of Vietnamese artists.

Lingjing is an experienced design leader and specialist for complex service redesign, systematic change, digital transformation and innovation. For 8 years, Lingjing has been working on delivering services, award-winning digital products and positive organisational and social outcomes in different sectors for clients across England, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

She is passionate about bringing clarity to systemic problems and supporting teams to be more creative. Most recently she has been working for the UK Government, Mayor’s office, British Film Institute and many Local Authorities across the UK to tackle complex social problems and improving public services.

Lingjing is a lead service designer at FutureGov, a digital and design company specialising in designing better public services. In the past ten years, FutureGov has helped more than a hundred local and national authorities across four continents think differently about public services.

George Sheldrake is a service and experience designer with over 15 years in the industry, working with clients in the UK, US, Europe and Australia. She has worked across the breadth of the design industry, from magazines and branding through to product and service transformation.

She believes in delivering design systems at the highest standard, from working with 90’s graphic designer Neville Brody to set up fashion magazines and culture brands, to creating the original BBC digital system GEL that is still in use today.

Her service design experience ranges from startup products like BBC Global iPlayer to an ecosystem fitness product for Nike, to transforming service approach in UK government for GDS and Ministry of Justice.

George is dedicated to creating products and services designed for the people that use them and the needs of the organizations around them. She is currently working with the HM Land Registry to support digital transformation and service change.

She is passionate about bringing together the breadth of her experience to design systems and services to help organizations change, both ‘what they do’ and ‘how they do it’.

J. Paul is Service Designer & Speculative Designer, and leads Neeley Worldwide where he helps organizations explores the social, cultural, economic, and ethical implications of emerging technologies, designing speculative futures that help engage with possibility as a way of reframing current state opportunities. Recent projects have focused on happiness, healthcare and wellbeing, sleep, self quantification, future mobility, AI, synthetic biology, closed loop fashion, homelessness prevention, and issues of complexity and computational irreducibility in design and business.

J. Paul has worked professionally at Mayo Clinic’s Center for Innovation as Service Designer & Researcher focusing on the healthcare experience and delivery, at Teton Radiology as Service Design Manager realizing innovative medical imaging solutions, and at Unilever in Consumer & Market Insights on brand development.

J. Paul is a tutor on the Service Design course at the Royal College of Art, and has guest lectured at Imperial College: Computer Science, RCA: Design Interactions, NYU: ITP, Köln International School of Design, RISD, and SVA: Design for Social Innovation. J. Paul holds an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art where he studied with Tony Dunne & Fiona Raby, and is a graduate of Northwestern University where he studied Communications Studies with a concentration in Economics.

Lauren is a European designer and entrepreneur from Scotland. She lives in London and spends her time as Head of Design at Good Lab and founder of #upfront. She makes, thinks, writes and speaks about confidence, design, social and change. She co-founded Snook, one of the UK's leading service design and social innovation agencies which uses design to make services better. Lauren was recently awarded an OBE for her services to design and diversity and was recently featured in ELLE UK as 30 women under 30 changing the world. Follow Lauren on twitter @redjotter and redjotter.com

Tatyana Mamut is a transformative leader, product innovator, and economic anthropologist.

She is General Manager & Director of Product at Amazon Web Services, where she is driving the development of a revolutionary new digital product. Before that, she was Vice President & Head of Product Experience for the Salesforce IoT Cloud, a big data, real-time event processing platform. She also led Salesforce’s Re-Invention of the premier CRM product, culminating in the “Lightning Experience.”

Tatyana also built and led the Organization Design Practice at global design firm IDEO. She led many high-stakes IDEO engagements including the creation of digital tools to drive citizen engagement and cultural transformation for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, development and scaling of a User-Centered Innovation Culture at Life Technologies, and the Human Centered Design (HCD) Toolkit for the Gates Foundation. She has also founded two successful consulting businesses, Emergent Thinking and CS Solutions. She has won numerous design awards for her work at IDEO and holds multiple design patents for her work at Salesforce and Amazon.

Tatyana has a PhD in economic anthropology from UC Berkeley and a BA in economics from Amherst College. She is a keynote speaker at global conferences and lectures at the Stanford D-School, focusing on technology & innovation — as well as the role of leadership & culture in creating and sustaining long-term competitive advantage in a rapidly-changing world.

Lionel is an innovation leader with a proven track record in large, complex organizations. He is passionate about galvanizing organizations around bold, customer-driven visions and empowering teams to do the best work of their lives. Currently the head of innovation at Intuit, Lionel leads a team of designers, researchers, marketers and storytellers to fuel innovation across the Small Business Group. Prior to joining Intuit in 2011, Lionel spent seven years at global innovation consultancy IDEO.

Nalini P. Kotamraju is Vice President of User Research & Analytics at Salesforce, where she leads a cross-disciplinary team that drives insights for product design and development. She loves using data in all of its forms to create the best product experiences possible. Previously, she led user experience research at Microsoft Dynamics AX, Sun Microsystems Inc., and assorted dot.com companies. Nalini also worked in Denmark and the Netherlands as a professor of technology and society.

Nalini earned her a B.A. in Social Studies and her B.A. in Women’s Studies from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley.

Susan serves as the Head of Strategy at IDEO’s office of the CEO. In this role, she works with IDEO’s senior leadership team stewarding change and growth initiatives across the firm.



A business and organizational designer by training, she is interested in exploring how established enterprises can embrace new ways of working. Her work on the Planned Parenthood Experience won a Fast Company Innovation by Design award in 2016.



Susan started her career in the early days of Google’s European Operations in Dublin. Her service in helping to scale and grow AdWords in EMEA and beyond was recognized with a Google Luminary award. She holds a BA in German Cultural Studies and Economics from Trinity College Dublin and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

La Shirl Turner is currently the Head of the Exterior and Interior Color and Materials team at FCA US LLC. She is responsible for the inspiration, research, development and coordination for all exterior and interior color and materials found in all FCA US vehicles. She has worked on vehicles such as the performance-driven 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, the iconic Jeep® Wrangler and the innovative Chrysler Pacifica minivan. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a focus on Fiber and Textile design from the College for Creative Studies.

Kasia Lys is a Lead Senior Designer in the Advanced Color and Materials studio at FCA US LLC. While Lys is responsible for overseeing the selection of exterior body paint, trim and wheel finishes for all FCA US brands, she spends the majority of her time with the Ram Truck brand. From research to material development, she oversees design and creation of all colors and materials used within the interiors of the Ram Truck model lineup. She recently completed work on the all-new Ram 1500 unveiled at the 2018 North American International Auto Show.

Lys earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in interior design with a minor in textile design from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. She enjoys a hands-on approach to design and appreciates highly crafted products and spaces.

Meredith Gannes began her automotive design career in Shanghai and she has continued to explore the different facets of automotive design over the past decade. As a design manager in the advanced color and materials studio at FCA US, she oversees interior color mastering and program information for all NAFTA vehicle programs. She spends the majority of her day working with FCA designers and suppliers to execute color and material for vehicle production. Additionally, Gannes manages a separate team that creates documents illustrating FCA vehicle interiors for internal and external use. Most recently, Gannes designed the color and materials for the latest Jeep® concept car, the YunTu, revealed at the 2017 Shanghai Auto Show. She also worked on the new Jeep Compass, as well as variations of the Fiat 500.

She earned her Bachelor of Arts in fashion and textile design from Michigan State University and her Master of Science in business administration from Wayne State University. She is passionate about design and enjoys working with her team of color, material and finish designers. When she is not working, she loves traveling and immersing herself in different cultures.

Shady Elias is a senior designer in the Advanced Color and Materials studio at FCA US LLC. He is responsible for and provides input on all interior colors and materials used on Chrysler, Dodge and SRT (Street, Racing and Technology) vehicles. He also provides support for all exterior color and trim across those FCA US brands. As a senior designer in the advanced color and materials studio, he works side-by-side with interior and exterior designers, brand and materials engineering to develop new, innovative interior and exterior trims and finishes for each vehicle. Most recently, Elias worked on the all-new 2017 Jeep® Compass, Jeep Renegade and the Chrysler Portal concept vehicle.

Elias earned a Master of Science in menswear design from the Academy of Art, San Francisco, and a Bachelor of Business Administration from The American University in Cairo. Prior to joining FCA, Elias was a children and menswear’s designer and has worked for Levi Strauss & Co. on their Levi’s and Dockers brands. He has also designed for brands such as Janie and Jack and The Northface.

Jennifer Kinon co-founded OCD | The Original Champions of Design with Bobby C. Martin Jr. OCD has developed brand identity systems for clients that range from the Girl Scouts of the USA to The New York Times, MTV and the NBA. During 2016, Kinon served as Design Director of Hillary for America. She has spoken about the role of brand identity systems around the world and served as President of AIGA/NY. Kinon graduated from the University of Michigan and earned an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, where she was the first graduate of the program to join its faculty.

Louise Fili is director of Louise Fili Ltd, specializing in brand development for food packaging and restaurants. Formerly senior designer for Herb Lubalin, Louise Fili was art director of Pantheon Books from 1978 to 1989, where she designed close to 2,000 book jackets. She is co-author, with Steven Heller, of Italian Art Deco, British Modern, Dutch Moderne, Streamline, French Modern, Deco España, German Modern, Design Connoisseur, Typology, Stylepedia, Euro Deco, Scripts, Shadow Type, Stencil Type, and Slab Serif Type. Fili has also written and designed Elegantissima, Grafica della Strada, Graphique de la Rue, Gràfica de les Rambles, The Cognoscenti's Guide to Florence, and Italianissimo. A member of the Art Directors Hall of Fame, she has received the medal for Lifetime Achievement from the AIGA and the Type Directors Club.

As Partner of Base, an international branding studio with a presence in New York, Brussels, and Geneva, Min spans the spectrum between design, strategy, and management. She has helped to build personality-driven brands for an eclectic range of clients that include MoMA, The New York Times, JFK Terminal 4, Meatpacking District, Neuehouse, Kiki de Montparnasse, Coca-Cola, Gagosian Gallery, Puma, Milk, Museum of Sex, L'Oreal, Le Pain Quotidien, Pantone, Wellesley College, Kanye West, and more.

A graduate of Yale University's MFA program, Min is an adjunct professor at the School of Visual Arts and a guest critic at Parsons School of Design. Next to passionately building brands and building Base, she is an adjunct professor at the School of Visual Arts, guest critic at Parsons The New School for Design, served as a board member of the AIGA/NY and served on the steering committee of NYCxDESIGN and is a regular speaker at design conferences.

Her work has been featured in and has contributed her thoughts on design and branding to publications that include The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Wall Street Journal, Adweek, Creativity, Creative Review, Surface, Fast Company, and others.

Osi Imeokparia has over 16 years as a product leader first at a venture-backed startup, and then at eBay and Google before joining the Hillary for America presidential campaign as the Chief Product Officer. Osi is now working at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) where the goal is to build a new type of philanthropic organization that brings engineering to social change at scale. At CZI, Osi leads the team responsible for building technology that will be applied to social justice fields like Criminal Justice Reform, Economic Opportunity, Housing Affordability, and Immigration Reform.

Recognized throughout the world as a leading authority on materials and their application in design, Chris Lefteri is one of the most important materials experts working in his field. For over a decade his studio work and publications have been pivotal in changing the way designers and the materials industry consider materials. In 2001 he published the first of eight books on materials and their application in design, which have been translated into six languages. These books have led the change in the way designers view and use materials. Subsequently his studio, Chris Lefteri Design, has worked with bluechip corporations and major design studios across Europe, the US and Asia implementing a broad range of strategies for effective materials integration in the design process.)

Recently named by CNET as one of the 20 Most Influential Latinos in Tech in 2017, Alberto Villarreal is an accomplished designer with experience across the fields of industrial design, interior architecture and design strategy. He currently works at Google in California, as Creative Lead in the hardware group. Leading a team of industrial designers, he is responsible for the Creative Direction of Google's mobile computing hardware product portfolio. His previous clientele has included Fortune 500 companies as well as small start-ups and non-profit organizations. Throughout his career, he's worked with companies such as: Volkswagen, Nike, Hewlett-Packard, Plantronics, Google, Fila, HTC, GreenToys, SanDisk, Adidas, Engineers Without Borders USA, Avaya, Conaculta, Coca-Cola, Motorola, BDF Beiersdorf, Johnson Controls, and Konica-Minolta. Although Alberto's work reflects a high charge of technology, he believes the cultural aspects are key in the design process and consequently in the success of a product or service.)

John Skabardonis is a Chemist-turned-Marketer-Communicator in the Polycarbonates business unit at Covestro, LLC. His responsibilities touch upon all aspects of marketing the Polycarbonates product line to the North American marketplace and include outreach to the Industrial Design community. Semi-officially, he is also the Social Media Maven for Polycarbonates at the Pittsburgh headquarters site. He received a Ph.D. in Physical/Organic Chemistry from Case Western Reserve University. He is a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America, a Chairholder in the Color Marketing Group and an unapologetic gear-head.)