Jury Alumni

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  Phil Balagtas

  Experience Design Director, The Design Futures Initiative, McKinsey Design

  2019 Speculative Design Jury Member

  Phil has been a practicing visual & interaction designer since 2001 and has experience designing across a variety of devices and platforms within non-profit, retail, advertising, and enterprise software organizations. He is currently an Experience Design Director at McKinsey & Company working with a variety of industries to transform and enhance their digital businesses and strategies. He is also the founder and organizer of the Design Futures Initiative which organizes the international Speculative Futures meetups and the PRIMER conference in the US and Europe. An educator and futurist, his events bring together designers and futurists from all over the world to teach and share strategies for designing for the future and the ethical challenges around emerging technologies.

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  Farrah Bostic

  Founder, The Difference Engine

  2022 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Farrah Bostic is a champion of empathetic, co-creative, and collaborative strategy, design, and research. Her focus is on helping business leaders make big decisions, with research as an essential tool for facilitating decision-making, advocating for the customer, and delivering audience insight that field great storytelling.
  
  She was a Group Planning Director at Digitas, led the consumer immersion practice at Ipsos/OTX, led the innovation practice at Hall & Partners, and developed her skills as a strategist at Mad Dogs & Englishmen/Mad Logic and TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles.
  
  In 2011 she founded The Difference Engine, where she works with clients across business-to-business and business-to-consumer categories including JetBlue, HarperCollins, eBay, AARP, Google, the Financial Times, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PRX, New York Public Media, The US Soccer Federation, IHG, Citibank, and Dow Jones Media Group. She is also an advisor to twofivesix, a content agency focused on gamers as customers and gaming as a channel, where she mentors and leads a team of strategists and researchers with clients including Intel, Sansar, Soundcloud, and others.

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  John Thackara

  Director, The Doors of Perception

  2015 Design for Social Impact Jury Captain

  For thirty years, John Thackara has traveled the world in his search of stories about the practical steps taken by communities to realize a sustainable future. He writes about these stories online and in books; he uses them in talks for cities and business; he also organizes festivals and events that bring the subjects of these stories together.John is the author of a widely-read blog atdesignobserver.comand of the best-sellingIn the Bubble: Designing In A Complex World (MIT Press) û also translated into nine languages. As director ofdoorsofperception.com, John organizes conferences and festivals in which social innovators share knowledge.John is a Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art, in London, and a Fellow of The Young Foundation, the UK's social enterprise incubator. He sits on the advisory boards of the Pixelache Festival in Helsinki, the Future Perfect festival in Sweden, and Design Impact in India. He is also a member of the UK Parliament's Standing Commission on Design.Earlier, John edited the magazine Design for five years, and was later Modern Culture Editor of Harpers & Queen, and design correspondent of The Guardian. He then started a conference and exhibition company ,with offices in London and Tokyo, which created and organised events at the Pompidou Centre, Victoria & Albert Museum, Axis Gallery in Tokyo, and other venues. From 1989-1992, John was Director of Research at the Royal College of Art.Among John's 12 books are Design After Modernism: Beyond the Object (1987) andLost in Space: A Traveller's tale (1995). He has lectured in more than forty countries.

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  Holly Friend

  Deputy Foresight Editor, The Future Laboratory

  2022 Speculative Design Jury Member

  Holly Friend is a trend forecaster and futurist obsessed with consumer behaviour. As The Future Laboratory’s deputy foresight editor and in-house Generation Z expert, her work shapes the trends intelligence platform LS:N Global, including micro and macro trend reports, renowned Trend Briefing events and Futures Forums. As well as being quoted by The Guardian, The Times and Dazed, Holly also consults on projects for some of the world’s leading brands and presents insight-packed keynotes at industry events around the world.

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  Ryan Essmaker

  Editorial and Creative Director, The Great Discontent

  2016 Visual Communication Jury Member

  Ryan Essmaker is an NYC-based creative director, designer, and photographer. He is a partner at the creative studio, Wayward Wild, and cofounder of The Great Discontent, a print and online magazine featuring timeless conversations with today’s artists, makers, and risk-takers. Launched as a digital-only magazine in 2011, TGD has grown to include film projects, events, and print. Prior to TGD, Ryan served as Creative Director and Head of Product at Crush & Lovely in NYC, and ran his own design and development studio in Michigan.

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  Kareem Collie

  Director of Design and Creativity, The Rick and Susan Sontag Center for Collaborative Creativity, The Hive (at the Claremont Colleges)

  2018 Design Education Initiative Jury Member

  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.

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  Beatrice Galilee

  Curator of Architecture and Design, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

  2016 Service Design Jury Member

  Beatrice Galilee is a London-based curator, writer, critic, consultant and lecturer of contemporary architecture and design. Trained in Architecture at Bath University, and in History of Architecture MSc at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, Beatrice specialises in the dissemination of architecture and design through city-wide projects, media, curatorial practice, research, editing and teaching.
  
  Beatrice is the Chief Curator of the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Close, Closer. She was co-curator at 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale, 2009 Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, and curator of the experimental performance design projects Hacked and Afrofuture at Milan Design Week. She is the co-founder and director of The Gopher Hole, an exhibition and project space in London, and is associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins.
  
  From 2006-2009 Beatrice was Architecture Editor for Icon Magazine, one of Europe's leading publications in architecture and design. In 2008 she won the IBP Architectural Journalist of the Year Award.
  
  Beatrice's writing has been published in a number of international magazines and books as well as daily newspapers, including Domus, Abitare, MARK, Tank, Pin-Up, Above, Building Design, Architectural Review, Architecture Today, RIBA Journal, Architect's Journal, DAMn, Frame, Wallpaper, Another Magazine, and the Serpentine Pavilion catalogue.

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  Hanah Ho

  Senior Art Director, The New York Times

  2021 Interaction Jury Member

  Hanah is a designer residing in Brooklyn, New York. She is currently a senior art director at The New York Times, developing campaigns and visual identity for podcasts and audio. Previously she was at the branding and design agency Champions Design, and Hillary for America where she worked to elect the first female president. She is currently serving on the board of AIGA NY and is passionate about connecting designers with new opportunities and engaging in the design community. She holds a BFA in Communication Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

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  Kristen Dudish

  Executive Director, The New York Times

  2019 Interaction Jury Member

  Kristen Dudish is an Executive Director of Product Design at The New York Times, where she leads teams in creating smart and meaningful digital experiences for both readers and newsroom creators. Previously, she was part of the product design teams at New York Magazine and The Knot. She got her start designing and illustrating greeting cards for Hallmark.

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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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  Max Steffen

  Global Design Director, Equipment and Accessories, The North Face

  2020 Sports & Recreation Jury Captain

  Max is the Global Design Director for Equipment and Accessories at The North Face with whom he recently transitioned from the San Francisco Bay Area to Denver, Colorado. Prior to his move to the United States, Max led his industrial design consultancy in Brussels, Belgium. When he’s not exploring the outdoors, he is seeking strategic design solutions that combine the functional world of industrial design with the emotional world of contemporary aesthetics.

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  Jonathan Black

  Co-founder, The Office of Ordinary Things

  2021 Packaging Jury Member

  Jonathan Black (he/him) is the co-founder of The Office of Ordinary Things, a socially- and environmentally-conscious design studio based in San Francisco. Jonny is hellbent on making sustainable graphic design the industry norm and shakes his fist at greenwashers, climate deniers, and people who chew gum near his ears. Jonny has an MFA in Visual Communication and has taught at The University of Arizona and The University of Colorado Boulder. His work has been published in AIGA Eye On Design, Communication Arts, Creative Review, It's Nice That, Dezeen, Fast Company, and jonnyiscool420.tumblr.com.

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  Richard Roche

  Co-founder, The Office of Ordinary Things

  2021 Packaging Jury Member

  Richard Roche (he/him) is the co-founder of The Office of Ordinary Things, a socially- and environmentally-conscious design studio based in San Francisco. Richard specializes in creative direction, web development, and copywriting. Most of his daily routine consists of hovering over elements he recently coded to make sure the animation is still rad, color coding his spreadsheets, and making eye-roll inducing dad jokes.

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  Spencer Wright

  Proprietor, ThePrepared.org

  2018 Commercial Equipment Jury Member

  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.

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  Pierce Otlhogile-Gordon, Ph.D.

  Equity Innovation Studio Director, Think Rubix

  2024 Speculative Design Jury Member

  Dr. Pierce Otlhogile-Gordon is an innovation catalyst, researcher, facilitator, and evaluator, impassioned by the space between transformation and liberation.
  
  As the Director of the Equity Innovation studio at Think Rubix, a Black-led social innovation consultancy. Dr. Gordon serves as a shepherd for Equity Innovation to shape our collective future.
  
  He’s taught courses in design, evaluation, international development, and equity across four continents, co-designed partnerships, products, and services with local and international changemakers to support social change, and researched the complexity, evaluation, and emergence of design and innovation across the world.
  
  What can we build together?