Jury Alumni

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  Sabina Weiss

  Designer and Researcher, Special Projects

  2023 Consumer Technology Jury Captain

  Sabina Weiss is an innovation designer focusing on products that help to channel meaningful experiences.
  
  Currently part of Special Projects, award winning innovation studio on a mission to enhance the unquantifiable aspects of life: empathy, wellbeing, delight, with meaningful design and invention.
  Working with brave companies to bring clarity to complex problems, discover new opportunities and transform them into tomorrow’s most loved customer experiences and products.
  
  Through her career, Sabina has contributed to several complex projects – strategically bringing to life brand values, physical and digital assets for companies: Google, Sony, Graphcore, Rolls-Royce, Hyundai Kia, Microsoft, Sabi and Fortnum and Mason.
  
  Sabina holds Innovation Design Engineering MA Royal College of Art / MSc Imperial College London; where her major project was a hybrid craft-technology interface that has received several accolades and exhibition features including Victoria and Albert Museum, Barbican Centre, and Somerset House.

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  David Whetstone

  Design Director, Astro Studios

  2015 Consumer Product Jury Member

  David Whetstone is an industrial designer in San Francisco, CA, but his creativity comes from the basketball courts of Northeast Ohio where he discovered athletic sneakers and self expression on the court. He remembers observing the best players and taking particular interest in how they presented themselves through clothing, posture and speech. He trained himself to observe the details, understand what people really want and why those things fit with their particularly crafted lifestyle.This ability to connect with culture has stayed with him, and he has carefully crafted his industrial design career to design products that people wear and use as expression of self. His unique position as an industrial designer with passion to create fashion relevant pieces has allowed him to work with leading lifestyle brands like Nixon, Electric Visual, Nike, Incase, and The Art of Shaving. His work has been available to buy at big department stores like Nordstrom and Barneys New York to premier boutiques like Opening Ceremony and Colette.David Whetstone is currently a Design Director at Astro Studios in San Francisco, CA.

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  Christina White

  Head of UX, Google Sheets, Google

  2021 Interaction Jury Member

  Christina is currently at Google, leading the UX design team for Sheets and Apps Script. Prior to Google, she built the UX team for brand and digital agency Gin Lane, where she launched digital-first startups like sweetgreen and Harry’s. She’s also led creative departments at digital agencies SapientNitro and Huge, specializing in retail, health & beauty, & consumer products. Christina holds a BS of Industrial Design from Georgia Institute of Technology, where she first established her belief in ergonomics in that delightful design is achieved when the product naturally fits into the environment, not the other way around. She lives in NYC with her husband and kids Geneveive, William, and Henry.

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  Porter Whitmire

  Senior Director of Product Development & Innovation Management, Techtronic Industries

  2018 Open Design Jury Member

  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.

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  Clay Wiedemann

  Head of Design, Zocdoc

  2020 Health & Wellness Jury Member

  Clay has been working in design and research since late last century, having shifted over from film and cultural studies. He spent much of his early career at frog, working in interaction and design research. There, he focused on complex design systems, innovation methods, and prototyping, and taught prototyping at SVA's MFA in Interaction Design program.
  
  He left frog to build the interaction team at Smart Design, and spent many days in awe of the physical prototyping skills of the industrial design team.
  
  He now leads design at Zocdoc, a service that help people navigate tough healthcare choices by quickly connect them to the right care. He remains focused on user-centered design, and works to ensure that everyone at Zocdoc develops a deep understanding of the patients and providers they help. Throughout his design career he has rescued cats.

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  Dayn Wilberding

  Director of Design, Exploration, Sonos

  2024 Consumer Technology Jury Member, 2024 A/V & Photography Equipment 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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  Dominic Wilcox

  Founder, Dominic Wilcox Studio

  2016 Open Design Jury Member

  Dominic Wilcox works between the worlds of art, design, craft and technology to create innovative and thought provoking objects. The British artist and designer studied on Ron Arad's Design Products course at The Royal College of Art . He has since shown his work internationally and been commissioned by brands such as BMW MINI, Kelloggs and Paul Smith. In 2015 he exhibited at museums such as London's Design Museum and the V&A. After the making of the documentary 'The Reinvention of Normal', which follows Wilcox and his work, he was invited to be a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert where he showed his 'Variations on Normal' ideas.
  Notable projects include the design of a pair of shoes with inbuilt GPS to guide the wearer home, a Stained Glass Driverless Sleeper car of the future and a INVENTORS! project turning children's ideas into real things.

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  Gill Wildman

  Co-Founder and Director, Plot Studio

  2015 Design for Social Impact Jury Member

  Gill has pioneered the use of design in strategy and innovation for 20 years. She was educated as a designer at Manchester Metropolitan University; has an MA in Design Innovation and Strategy from Brunel University; and recently held Carnegie Mellon School of Design's Nierenberg Chair for 2 years.Her early career was as a researcher and developer of public services in play, youth and social action contexts. This used a people-centered practice of connecting local needs, networks and agencies called the community development approach.She created the design strategy agency Plot in 2004 after four years as a Design Manager at the UK Design Council. Plot has provided innovation labs, workshops and consultancy for a wide variety of public, private and third sector clients at different stages of their lifecycle.Right now, Gill's attention is focused on Upstarter the nomadic design-led incubator she has founded. It's mission is to stimulate embryonic enterprises using strategic design thinking, innovation and design methods. The Upstarter programme is active with partners in London, Bristol and Barcelona, and helps bring a mix of social, commercial and creative industry startups to life.

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  Bernie Wildner

  Director of Design, Amazon

  2019 Health & Wellness Jury Member

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  Matt Willey

  Art Director, The New York Times Magazine

  2015 Visual Communication Jury Member

  Matt graduated from Central St Martins in 1997. Having gained valuable experience at a handful of small design companies he joined the internationally acclaimed studio Frost Design, later becoming Creative Director. In 2005 he co-founded Studio8 Design with Zod Bather. Matt is a co-founder of Port Magazine, which launched in February of 2011. In 2014 he was named Designer of the Year by Creative Review.He is currently the Art Director of The New York Times Magazine.

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  Kevin Williams

  Founder & CEO, OgoSport

  2024 Toys & Play Jury Captain

  Kevin Williams, a product developer based in coastal South Carolina, graduated with a Masters in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute in 1995. He has since founded several design-focused companies including MAKE, CAKE, Everest Columbarium, Ogosport, and Plan C. In 2006, alongside Rick Goodwin, he started Ogosport, a toy and game company. Ogosport's innovative products are distributed in over 40 countries and have earned multiple nominations and awards, including the TOTY (Toy of the Year) from the Toy Industry Association. Kevin is deeply passionate about design, emphasizing user experience and play value in his work.

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  Marie Williams

  CEO, Dream Networks

  2023 Toys & Play Jury Member

  Marie is a playful chartered engineer, design lecturer, TedX speaker, and CEO of Dream Networks. She founded Dream Networks in 2016 and has collaborated with businesses, schools, and communities to co-design and build engaging play spaces in economically deprived communities around the world. To date, Dream Networks has adopted sustainable design practices to create inclusive play spaces for over 60,000 children in the UK and Africa.
  
  She is an advocate for children's right to change the spaces they inhabit through play and design practices that prioritizes the needs of the community and the environment. In her recent TEDx, she suggests deconstructing the playground and demonstrates how we can collectively make play possible for all by adopting a child-centered approach that focuses on inclusive spaces, playful materials, and local connections. Through her Ph.D. at the UCL Institute of Global Prosperity within the Bartlett school of architecture, she has developed a critical blueprint for cultivating sustainable outdoor play spaces in urban refugee communities that relies on culturally specific co-design, materiality, and ethnography. She is a lecturer on design and innovation at Universities in the UK, Kenya, and the USA. Marie is a Christian, mother, and spontaneous baker.
  

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  Scott Wilson

  Founder + CEO, MNML

  2023 Sports & Outdoors Jury Member

  Scott Wilson is a design entrepreneur and founder of the brand acceleration and product innovation studio, MINIMAL (MNML), in Chicago. With a diverse background in industries spanning lifestyle, sports, furniture, medical, consumer products, agriculture, and technology, Wilson has a passion for solving problems through beautifully simple solutions that connect emotionally and rationally with users. His studio has received numerous awards and recognition for its 15-year track record of commercial design successes creating billions of dollars in revenue for its clients and partners.
  
  In 2010, Wilson's Apple Nano LUNATIK Watch campaign sparked both the crowdfunding and wearable era and became the first $1 million Kickstarter fundraiser in history, changing the face of entrepreneurialism forever. He has been recognized as one of TIME Magazine's and Fast Company's Most Influential Designers and is a recipient of the prestigious Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award, which is bestowed upon the top designer in the nation each year by the White House.
  

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  Susie Wise

  Strategic Advisor, Designer & Coach, School Retool, Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (d.school)

  2018 Design Education Initiative Jury Captain

  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.

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  Chris Woebken

  Co-founder, Extrapolation Factory

  2018 Design Concept Jury Member

  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.