Jury Alumni

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  Dr. Yoko Akama

  Senior Lecturer in Communication Design, RMIT University

  2015 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Dr. Yoko Akama is a Senior Lecturer in design in the School of Media and Communication and Research Leader of the Design Research Institute at RMIT University, Australia. Her Japanese heritage has embedded a Zen-informed reflective practice in human-centered design. Her design research practice is entangled in social 'wicked problems', to strengthen adaptive capacity for disaster resilience in Australia and Japan, and to contribute towards the efforts of Indigenous Nations enact their self-determination and governance. Trained as a communication designer, visualization features strongly in her work to catalyze meaning-making, learning and dialogue through participatory interactions. Yoko is a leader and founder of two prominent design networks – Service Design Network and Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability Lab- in Melbourne, Australia. These are fostering a community of practice among academia, business, government and community organizations to share and create knowledge on human-centered design applications.She is a recipient of British Council Design Research Award (2008); a Finalist in the Victorian Premier's Design Award (2012); and two Good Design Australia Awards (2014), which has led to invitations for collaboration and guest lectures at several national and international institutions in the UK, US, Europe and Japan.

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  Hugh Evans

  CEO and Co-Founder, FromHereOn

  2015 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Hugh Evans is an entrepreneur and business designer with a focus on large scale enterprise transformation and using design practice in a business context. Since his first venture in 2002 he has founded and led the development of a business portfolio that has guided major transformation investments for organizations across 5 continents, generating more than US$100M in service revenues. Currently Hugh leads FromHereOn (www.fromhereon.com), which is an Enterprise Design firm focused on customer-led strategy, service transformation and redesigning how businesses operate. FromHereOn works with multinational organizations from offices in London and New York.

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  Harold G. Nelson

  Visiting Scholar, University of Montana, School of Computer Science

  2015 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Dr. Harold Nelson is a visiting scholar in the School of Computer Science at the University of Montana. He was the 2009-2010 Nierenberg Distinguished Professor of Design in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a Senior Lecturer in the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Dr. Nelson was the head of the Graduate Programs in Whole Systems Design (WSD) at Antioch University and has held teaching positions in several universities. He is a licensed architect in the State of California and worked as the assistant regional architect for the U.S. Forest Service in San Francisco, California.He is a past-president and a trustee of the International Society for Systems Science. He is the co-founding Director and President of the Advanced Design Institute and owner of Harold Nelson LLC; Organizational Design Competence. He has worked with a variety of organizations, including: non-profits and corporations, state and federal agencies, international governments and the United Nations.Dr. Nelson received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley where he designed his own graduate program in Social Systems Design. He received his Master of Architecture degree from U.C. Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Montana State University.

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  Dr. Melis Senova

  Group Managing Director, Huddle Design

  2015 Strategy & Research Jury Captain

  As Founder and Director at Huddle, Melis is the main provocateur when it comes to encouraging creative and pragmatic solutions. She is passionate about driving change within organizations with a natural focus on human centricity, design and what it takes to thrive in the 21st century.Melis has deep academic qualifications and vast business experience, underpinned by a PhD in Human Factors (user-centered design). Her areas of expertise covers service strategy, strategic service design, experience design, concept prototyping, systems engineering, program management and human factors research.Melis is a contributing author to This is Service Design Thinking, the very first textbook on Service Design published in 2011. She sits on the advisory board for the Department of Architecture and Industrial Design at RMIT and is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Medicine at Monash University.Melis is also co-founder of London-based Enterprise Design consultancy FromHereOn.

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  Marcel Zwiers

  Founder, 31Volts

  2015 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Service Designer