Jury Alumni

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  Roger Kellenberger

  Swiss Army Knife of Design

  2024 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  I consider myself a versatile 'Swiss Army Knife' of design, focusing on connecting the dots between brand, product, and user by emphasizing human-centered design to maintain a value-oriented experience. Initially trained by fuseproject and Studio F.A. Porsche, I have spent the past fifteen years working for leading design studios in Europe, the USA, and Asia. During this time, I collaborated with startups and Fortune 500 companies across multiple industries, picking up a few design awards every now and then. Being naturally curious, I am fascinated by human-machine collaboration as part of the creative process and always wondering what’s next.

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  Will Howe

  Industrial Design Consultant

  2023 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  I am an independent industrial design consultant committed to bringing coherent vision and expert delivery to the development of hardware in connected and analogue spaces.
  Across different product scales, I’ve helped ambitious tech start-ups and some of the world's most prestigious brands, informing and elevating their business with robust strategic thinking and industrial craft.
  Notable outputs include high-profile civic projects such as the London Olympic Torch and the Elizabeth Line Train interior. I’ve explored future autonomous vehicle experiences with Honda, luxury consumer products with Axor Hansgrohe, and the world’s first fully integrated quantum computing system for scientific and commercial use - IBM Quantum System One.
  Most recently with Sky, I led the development of their core hardware proposition, culminating in the delivery of the Sky Glass streaming TV platform in 2021.

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  Nishita Gill

  Founder & Creative Principal, Treemouse

  2023 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  Nishita Gill is the founder of Treemouse, an award-winning strategic consultancy that applies design-led problem-solving techniques to uncharted areas. Over a decade, they’ve been fundamental in scaling design to areas like building systems that help people feel comfortable about seeking treatment for virulent diseases like tuberculosis and hepatitis C, building product feature sets that increase acceptance of digital applications, and enhancing ways to build more resilient and people-centric public systems that reach 1.3bn people in India.
  
  Nishita is passionate about adapting niche concepts and novel approaches for mass adoption and frequently advises startups on building feature-sets that scale. She lives in London and is always searching for the next best flavor of tea.
  

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  Youenn Colin

  Design Director, Connected Products & Spaces, Accenture

  2020 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  As the Design Director for Fjord’s Connected Products & Spaces in North America, Youenn oversees a team of designers, providing guidance on craft, content and clients engagements. Thanks to his fluency in User Centered Design process, his extensive experience partnering with clients to uncover opportunities and his abilities to create meaningful and impactful solutions for various industries, Youenn has brought to life numerous product experiences at the intersection of physical and digital.
  He’s collaborated with discerning clients ranging from Fortune 500 to startups alike: AB-inbev, Best Buy, County of Los Angeles, Dell, Facebook, Fiat, Ford, Fossil Group, Google, HTC, Kodak, Microsoft, Motorola, Nike, Pure Storage, Renault, Salomon, Samsung, Sony… collecting in the process a number of international awards, patents and publications.

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  Milena Sadée

  Design Director, Airbnb

  2022 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  Milena Sadée is a Director of Design for Workshop at Airbnb. Prior to this role, she led a 30 person, multidisciplinary team within Amazon Devices that focused on early concept ideation and development across Echo Products, Alexa AI, Emerging Devices and more. Previously she led the interactive team at 2x4, an award winning global design studio with clients such as Prada, MoMA and Nike. There she focused on retail, event, exhibition, and installation design.

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  Yuko Osawa

  Principal Designer, argodesign

  2022 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  Yuko Osawa is a Principal Designer at argodesign in Brooklyn, New York. With a career spanning 20+ years, she has lived and worked in Japan, Australia, the UK, Canada, and the US. Her work spans immersive exhibitions and digital design for subjects as diverse as corporate digital transformation, DNA sequencing, and connected toys for kids. She is inspired by the messiness of complex problems. Outside of work, Yuko is an avid snowboarder, rock climber, and plant mama. Her favorite food is cake. (That’s not a joke.)

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  David Lipkin

  Managing Director, North America, argodesign

  2022 Consumer Technology Jury Captain

  David Lipkin is Managing Director, North America at argodesign where he helps new and existing clients with their product strategies. Before joining argo, he co-founded Method, one of the first technology-led, integrated brand, product, and UX design firms. At Method, David's work focused on design of brands, products, and services across digital and analog platforms for clients like Comcast, McDonalds, Microsoft, Google, Gucci, and the TED conferences. This work has been influential on a global scale, setting standards for best practices in design, brand, and products and service design. David lives in Brooklyn with his wife, two daughters, in a creaky 1880s brownstone.

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  Kevin Bethune

  Founder and Chief Creative Officer, dreams • design + life

  2021 Consumer Technology Jury Captain

  Kevin Bethune is the Founder & Chief Creative Officer of dreams • design + life, a "think tank" that delivers design & innovation services using a human-centered approach. Kevin's background spans engineering, business and design in equal proportion over his 25+ year career, positioning him to help brands deliver meaningful innovations to enrich people's lives.
  
  His work represents creative problem-solving that brings multidisciplinary teams together to see the future through an open aperture, and a deep industrial design approach to inform and influence desirable, feasible and business-viable design outcomes.
  
  Kevin began his career as a mechanical engineer in the nuclear power industry. This chapter gave him deep product experience working with high performing teams across 14 nuclear reactor upgrade campaigns. After his MBA, Kevin joined Nike, Inc. in a business capacity, but quickly navigated to the Global Footwear product engine to drive advanced digital product creation capabilities, discovering the world of design in the process. After solidifying his creative foundation through further studies at ArtCenter College of Design, Kevin co-founded distinct design & innovation capabilities at two Tier 1 management consulting firms in Booz & Co. and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). As Vice President of Strategic Design at BCG Digital Ventures, he led a large cohort of designers that would influence and shape every corporate venture spun out from the incubator. Kevin left BCG Digital Ventures to carve his own path under the banner of dreams • design + life, focusing on unlocking human potential through strategic design, industrial design and the building of new ecologies.
  
  Kevin also serves as a Board Trustee for ArtCenter College of Design and a Board Director for the Design Management Institute (DMI).

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  Michel Alvarez

  Global Design Manager, Drinkfinity

  2019 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  Michel is the Global Design Manager at Drinkfinity and has worked as a designer since 2003. He has worked at various agencies and companies all over the country, from Cleveland to Boston, from San Francisco to Miami.

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  Niti Bhan

  Designer, Emerging Futures Lab (consulting) and Ymmärrys ry (non-profit)

  2022 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  After 30 odd years in the global design industry opening doors to new markets through exploratory user research, concept design, and innovation strategies, Niti is pursuing a part time PhD in Product Development at Aalto University, Finland. Her research explores the contribution of collaborative design practices to foster agency and capacity for innovation as a resilience strategy to shocks for micro-enterprises. Her design approach is a transdisciplinary one where participants generate the actionable knowledge for designing their own innovation and transformation roadmaps

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  Irina Kozlovskaya

  Director of Industrial Design, Fitbit

  2020 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  Irina Kozlovskaya is a director of industrial design at Fitbit, where she leads a team of designers creating products that help people live healthier, happier lives.
  
  Irina is driven by the conviction that collaboration and a human-centered approach are fundamental to good design, which, at its core, is simple, helpful, and enduring.
  
  Prior to joining Fitbit, Irina worked with a broad range of companies, as well as founding a New York City based design consultancy, Vim & Vigor. Her client list includes global brands such Nest, HTC, Kitchenaid, Martha Stewart, and Barnes & Noble, as well as multiple startups.
  
  The daughter of two architects, Irina grew up in Saint Petersburg, Russia before moving to the United States to study at the Rhode Island School of Design.
  
  Her work has been recognized by Red Dot, IF, ICFF Studio, IDEA, and Spark awards.
  
  Irina is a vice chairwoman of Women in Design San Francisco.

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  Qin Li

  Vice President of Design, fuseproject

  2024 Consumer Technology Jury Captain

  As the Vice President of Design at fuseproject, Qin Li leads the creative team, overseeing Industrial Design, Experience Design, Environments, Visual Design, and CMF. Harnessing her creativity and leadership, she takes a holistic and multidisciplinary approach to the team and design, and engaging all the disciplines within a fully informed, thorough, and integrated process.
  
  Qin's philosophy is rooted in a human-centered approach. She firmly believes that designers have the power to drive cultural change, enhance the quality of life, and address some of the world's most pressing issues. In her time at fuseproject, she has played a pivotal role in guiding designs to market for a diverse range of clients, spanning Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, non-profits, and entrepreneurs. These designs have encompassed various categories, including AI & robotics, health & wellness, wearable tech, consumer electronics, furniture, retail & exhibition, packaging & soft goods, among others.
  
  Qin’s work has been honored with global recognition and numerous awards, including Gold and a Special Award from IDEA for the Snoo bassinet and Ori Living, 100 Best Inventions of 2020 from TIME Magazine for a smart bot, Moxie, designed for Embodied, and 2023 Design Project of The Year Award from Dezeen for the Cionic Neural Sleeve. Qin is also the recipient of the 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award from the Academy of Art University.

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  Tingbin Tang

  CEO, Jiusi Creativity

  2024 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  Tingbin has been a designer, educator, and serial entrepreneur. As a designer, his works have won many design awards, were reported by Time magazine, ABC Good Morning America program, BBC news, etc. And was permanently collected by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum. He has been teaching and managing at three institutions in three different countries. He was the Dean of the School of Design of Pearl Academy in India; an Interaction Design professor at San Jose State University in California, USA; and he was the founder and director of the Transportation Design program at CAFA Central Academy of Fine Arts in China. He founded Gopackup, which connects travelers with locals; he cofounded Trisenx, which brought the third sense, smell into the internet; he founded Nearal, a location-based professional networking platform; and he also founded and worked on MeiCAD, an AI-powered CAD tool.

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  Aaron Day

  Experience Designer, Kaidan OÜ

  2022 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  Aaron Day is an experience designer with 23 years of work in sound, vibration and environmental design. He collaborates with strategists, product owners, engineers, designers and artists from around the globe. In 2017 he co-authored a book called Designing with Sound 2018, O’Reilly Media, Inc and is interested in art, music, programming and digital ledger technology.
  
  Aaron has worked across the planet for many different clients in different industries including: Audi, AT&T, BMW, Bruel & Kjaer, Ferrari, Fiat, Jeep, Maserati, McLaren, Mozilla, Samsung, Siemens, Sony, Telefónica, Nike, Vodafone and Vision3. Currently he owns and operates Kaidan OÜ, delivering consulting and design to international clients.

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  Magdalena Paluch

  Co-founder and CEO, LabTwin

  2021 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  Magdalena is the co-founder and CEO of LabTwin. She is a passionate design-driven entrepreneur with over 15 years of design and hands-on execution experience in building digital products and leading cross-disciplinary teams in an agile fashion.
  
  In her previous role as Director at BCGDV, she was responsible for building up from scratch more than ten corporate-backed start-ups in Europe and the U.S., primarily focused on the healthcare space.
  
  Before joining BCGDV, she worked as a Senior Innovation Strategist at Toyota, where she was responsible for identifying and implementing emerging technologies in mobility and robotics such as autonomous vehicle design.

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  Bill Valls

  disruptive influence & CEO, M80inc.

  2019 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  Bill has devoted four decades to the design and development of new products and packaging for Fortune 50 and 500 CPG brands. His singular focus has been to harness cultural imagination for progressive clients who long for authenticity in an era of high-volume sameness. Using an innovative studio model that blends creative awareness with process milestones, Bill has a long history of delivering client success across a wide range of consumer categories.