Jury Alumni

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  Sal Agosta

  Vice President of Architecture and Design, SimEx Iwerks

  2024 Built Environment Jury Member

  With over 25 years of experience at SimEx-Iwerks, Sal has honed his expertise in architecture and design to perfection. He is Vice President of Architecture and Design, Responsible for crafting captivating attractions found in top theme parks, museums, zoos, and aquariums globally, Sal’s drive for innovation and commitment to quality has positioned them as a respected leader in the industry. Based in Toronto, Sal finds inspiration in the city's vibrant atmosphere and thriving creative community.
  
  "Design aficionado who finds inspiration in every corner of the globe. Whether it's a unique architecture or a simple piece of street art, I am always seeking new ways to incorporate creativity into my work. When not immersed in design, you can find me hitting the pavement on my bike or going for a run."

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  Scott Hickman

  Creative Director, Coca Cola

  2024 Built Environment Jury Member

  Scott creates design-driven experiences and environments for the best-known brands in the world. He leads teams that specialize in experience design, digital media, architecture, place making, interactivity, environmental graphic design and fabrication to develop branded environments that are multi-sensory and nontraditional. Scott is a tech-savvy storyteller that connects brands to massive markets with immersive digital and physical interactions. His journey has taken him from boutique West coast studios to global East coast agencies, and he is currently the Creative Director for the World of Coca-Cola, a first-mover in branded spaces.

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  Kristin Kreppner

  Senior Project Manager, CBRE

  2024 Built Environment Jury Member

  Kristin Kreppner is a Senior Project Manager with CBRE’s Project Management team in Atlanta, GA. Ms. Kreppner utilizes her twelve years of experience in the architectural and interior design industry to consult some of the most notable owners and occupiers in the Atlanta area as well as nationally including Cox Enterprises, Nike, and Google. Her understanding of experiential design, as well as her attention to detail and client service, brings tremendous value to her clients throughout the region. Before joining CBRE, Ms. Kreppner practiced interior design and project management at both Gensler and, most recently, Interior Architects (IA). As an interior designer, Ms. Kreppner has been involved in large-scale projects, experiential and exhibition design, and branded environments that focus on the end-user and visitor experience. This includes the renovation of approximately 2.3M SF of Coca-Cola’s headquarters Campus. With a special focus on leading the storytelling and showcasing the replica of Robert Woodroof’s office and display of his innovative thought leadership in the Central Reception Building (CRB). In addition, she has also managed the design and construction of multiple production studios and innovation labs for Nike, Papa Johns, and Cox Enterprises. She had led efforts on interior renovations for Cobo Hall Convention Center and Ritz Carlton Japan Lobby and amenity spaces. Kristin has led several large headquarters assignments in the Atlanta Metro area and multimarket accounts. Most recently, Ms. Kreppner served as the design team lead for Brown Forman’s Immersive visitor experience center and renovation of a historically registered barrel warehousing facility showcasing their vast amount of products, local distilling process, company history, and tasting room.

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  Jacqueline Tang

  Creative Director/ Studio Director, Entro Communications

  2024 Built Environment Jury Member

  As a Creative Director at Entro, Jacqueline brings over 12 years of multi-disciplinary design experience to the team. Her expertise spans a wide spectrum, including experiential graphics, exhibition design, identity, branding and interior design. Drawing inspiration from all aspects of life, Jacqueline strives to create dynamic, user-friendly environments of all types and sizes. Jacqueline’s education in Graphic Design, Architecture, and Fine Art History allows her to approach each project with a unique perspective. She is a valuable member of the senior design team with a skilled ability to work with international and specialized consultants, architects and fabricators to deliver highly tailored, award-winning solutions.

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  Afshin Mehin

  Lead Designer, Card79

  2024 Commercial Equipment Jury Captain

  Afshin Mehin is the founder of Card79, a creative studio based in San Francisco. The studio focuses on tackling complex and future-facing projects, working on everything from Brain Computer Interfaces to Autonomous Vehicles for agile Startups like Postmates as well as large companies like Amazon and Lululemon. Afshin’s experience blends the old and new, having worked for traditional furniture designers like BarberOsgerby and Terence Conran as well as futuristics institutions such as M.I.T. ’s Media Lab Europe and Elon Musk’s Neuralink.

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  Kendra Byrne

  Group Product Manager, Google DeepMind

  2024 Commercial Equipment Jury Member

  Kendra is a Group Product Manager at Google DeepMind where she leads product innovation for new research products. For the last 5 years, Kendra has worked with teams to ground research in user-centered needs and help bring new technologies to life.
  
  Before joining Google DeepMind, Kendra held product leadership positions at X the Moonshot Factory, Bot & Dolly, and Formant. At X, she co-founded the project that graduated as Intrinsic, a robotics software and AI company at Alphabet. At Bot & Dolly, Kendra was responsible for developing easy to use interfaces for robotics in cinematography and visual eects.

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  Rhys Newman

  Global Head of Design & User Experience, ABB E-Mobility

  2024 Commercial Equipment Jury Member

  Rhys is the Global Head of Design & User Experience at ABB E_Mobility. He previously worked as a consultant and led multi-disciplinary Design teams at Google X's Everyday Robots, Casper Sleep, NOKIA, and Lego. He co-founded his entrepreneurial venture, OMATA in 2015.
  As a Design Leader, he has a reputation for building happy and motivated studios where designers want to work, creativity is the priority, and innovation happens. He is obsessed with nurturing cultures of creativity, optimism, and the value of Design and Designing as a perspective and a practice.
  Rhys has a Master’s Degree in Product Design from the Royal College of Art in London, and a First Class Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Wales, Cardiff, UK. He has been a part-time lecturer at Art Centre, Pasadena; Goldsmiths University, London; Denmark Design School, Copenhagen; and the Royal College of Art, London. He has also served on the jury of numerous competitions, was Chair of the IDSA IDEA Awards, and has multiple patents.

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  Anthony Prats

  Product Lead, Robotics & Automation, Stealth Startup

  2024 Commercial Equipment Jury Member

  From creating lovable robot sidekicks to defining the future of food, Anthony Prats is a product and design leader with a decade of experience building category-defining hardware and software products. He got his start at Anki, helping to bring their Cozmo robot to life, built a molecular beverage printer at Cana, and explored the future of human-robot interaction at Google. He currently leads robotics and automation efforts at a stealth startup in the food space.

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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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  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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  Youjin Nam

  Designer & Thinker, Reality Labs - Meta

  2024 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  My professional experience is a melting pot across multiple continents, agency to in-house, vision to execution, and design to business.
  
  Always asking "why", I believe good designers strive to understand basic human needs. Like culture, I believe good design is basic fabric of human life.

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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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  Dayn Wilberding

  Director of Design, Exploration, Sonos

  2024 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  Dual-decade champion of design innovation culture for multi-sensory scenery and visceral joy. Product leader from the explorer teams that built iconic physical product experiences like Jawbone hearables, Jawbone Jambox, Sonos Trueplay auto-tuning, Sonos Move, multimodal UI, ambient interaction, generative moodscapes, and over 50 patents for tomorrow's experiences.

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  Sabiha Basrai

  Co-Owner, Design Action Collective

  2024 Design for Social Impact Jury Captain

  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.

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  Noopur Agarwal

  Associate Professor + Program Director, Design, University of San Francisco

  2024 Design for Social Impact Jury Member

  Noopur Agarwal is a visual communication designer and educator dedicated to increasing critical public engagement with issues of global and local concern. Her practice is based both on service: working collaboratively and interdisciplinarily to make a strategic difference within an organization; and authorship: producing exploratory works. Her creative output often takes the form of “experiential graphic design” (physical and digital interactive environmental graphics) and includes brand identity concepts for events, organizations, exhibitions, publications, and advertisements.
  Agarwal is currently is an Associate Professor and Design Program Director in the Art + Architecture department at the University of San Francisco. She maintains an active consultancy practice in addition to her teaching, where her client list has included nonprofit, publishing, and technology organizations.

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  Sarah Dunham

  Partner, MTWTF

  2024 Design for Social Impact Jury Member

  Sarah is a Partner at MTWTF, where she has been shaping design processes, managing interdisciplinary design teams, and facilitating community engagement since joining the studio in 2014. MTWTF is a communication design studio that believes that good design has the power to help individuals, organizations, and businesses clarify what they do and manifest their ideas to make change happen. The studio situates itself within the broadest discipline of design — the shaping of our shared physical and electronic environment — and creates communication tools that foster discussion and facilitate change.
  
  Acting as project manager and art director, Sarah develops design strategies for projects that are drawn from a rigorous engagement with their content. This approach has driven exhibitions including ‘Utopia— Dystopia’ a multimedia exhibition at the Audi Design Incubator in Brooklyn; ‘Seeing Equal Rights in New York State’ an interactive exhibition at the Equal Rights Heritage Center; ‘Climates of Inequality’ an interactive exhibition of student work on environmental justice by the Humanities Action Lab; and 'Maneuvers at Millers River' a case study exhibition currently in development for the National Pubic Housing Museum in Chicago.