Jury Alumni

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  Julien Van Havere

  Principal, DesignPractice™

  2020 Sports & Recreation Jury Member

  Julien is a Stockholm based designer with a broad experience in strategy, brand and graphic design. He is currently running DesignPractice™, a design consultancy with a focus on brand identity, SearchSystem™, an ever-growing collection of references and TypeFoundry™, a collection of typefaces and collaterals. He has been working for small and large enterprises both nationally and internationally including: Askul, Duvel, Escuyer, IKEA, Lexus, NIO, Polestar. His work has been awarded and exhibited at the Design Museum of London, Bozar Center for Fine Arts in Brussels and MAD Center for Fashion and Design in Brussels.

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  Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino

  Director, designswarm

  2019 Crowdfunding Jury Member

  Internet of things author, consultant, public speaker and entrepreneur with a background in industrial and interaction design.

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  Miya Osaki

  Partner, Diagram

  2021 Health & Wellness Jury Captain

  Miya Osaki is a partner at Diagram, a New York based, women- and minority-owned healthcare design studio. Miya brings her passion for design, research, collaboration, and storytelling to improve outcomes and create more caring and equitable experiences for people and our communities. Prior to founding Diagram, Miya served as Director of Experience Design at Johnson & Johnson’s Global Strategic Design Office, where she created innovative services for patients managing chronic conditions. Miya is also the Chair of the graduate Design for Social Innovation (DSI) program at the School of Visual Arts, the first MFA program in social design, and serves on the Board for the Public Policy Lab. She is the co-host for the podcast, Yah, No, focused on the intersection of design, business, and healthcare. A west-coast native, Miya currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

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  Peder Sandqvist

  Creative Technologist and Head of VR & AR, DigitasLBi

  2017 Interaction Jury Member

  Peder Sandqvist is Creative Technologist and Head of VR & AR at DigitasLBi Nordics.
  
  As the founder of the DigitasLBi VR Lab (www.dlbivrlab.com), he works together with a diverse team of experts in different areas of technology, visual- and immersive communication to challenge conventions, invent new ways to communicate and create value for both the agency’s clients and end users.
  
  Growing up, he spent those famous tens of thousands of hours drawing and building worlds with Lego. Finding out that the skill set he gained could be used to create some truly amazing 3D content he spent fifteen years as a 3D artist producing state of the art visual effects. As it turns out experience in 3D creation and visual communication is essential in the creation of quality virtual- and augmented reality content.
  
  The past four years he has been exploring and challenging the world of VR & AR, with a singular focus on creating spotless magic moments that have a lasting impact.
  
  His work includes the multi award winning VR experience for the global launch campaign for Volvo XC90, Husqvarna Limberjack on SteamVR and ‘The Loop’ for OnePlus.

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  Todd Palmer

  Director, Diversity in Design Collaborative

  2023 Built Environment Jury Captain

  Todd Palmer is a strategist, curator, and cultural leader of purpose-driven platforms at the intersection of design, public learning and spatial equity. As Director of the Diversity in Design Collaborative he steers a start-up driven by over 56 design-focused organizations that are aligned to confront systemic barriers faced by Black talent at critical moments in the design lifecycle.
  
  Palmer orchestrated the second and third editions of the Chicago Architecture Biennial as its’ Executive Director, defining the platform’s identity as a global catalyst connecting design experimentation with civic urgencies. As Curator and Associate Director of Chicago’s National Public Housing Museum (2013-2016), Todd ensured exhibits and programs served grassroots efforts to rehabilitate a community site as a cultural framework for confronting poverty.
  
  Palmer’s transdisciplinary efforts have been profiled in range of media outlets - most recently the DID Collaborative under Palmer’s leadership was recognized by a 2022 Fast Company Innovation By Design Award. As an independent creative Todd co-founded Program Collective, the design team behind immersive exhibitions tackling sustainability at the core of Spain’s World Expo 2008. He has also designed urban justice prototypes for Harlemworld at the Studio Museum (2004) and published critical essays in Columbia University’s The Avery Review (2015) and Illinois Institute of Technology’s 2022 Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize catalogue. As an educator, Todd has created high school design curriculum for Miami’s Design and Architecture Senior High School, and taught professional certificate and advanced degree courses in design and curatorial practices at NYU and for RISD’s M.Arch program.

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  Dick Mulders

  Founder, DMD Amsterdam

  2022 Built Environment Jury Member

  Dick gained his experience as an interior designer by completing his bachelor’s degree in Interior Architecture and Design at Raffles International School of Commerce in Shanghai and Sydney. Dick was also inspired by living in metropolises such as London, Shanghai and Sydney. Before founding DMD Amsterdam, in 2017, he gained experience by working at the internationally renowned architectural firm OMA and COARE in Amsterdam.
  
  Dick's main sources of inspiration have been the international influences, travels and experiences over the years. He likes to create environments that are distinctive, have something surprising, something striking, something unique and alluring that conveys bold luxury.

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  Peter Michaelian

  Head of Design, Dolby Laboratories

  2020 Commercial Equipment Jury Captain

  Peter Michaelian is head of design at Dolby Laboratories for products and experiences. Through industrial and environmental design, he and his team help to bring advanced audio and visual experiences to the world.
  
  Previously, he served as creative director at frog in San Francisco. Michaelian received undergraduate and master’s degrees from The Cooper Union in New York City and taught as an adjunct professor of design at The Cooper Union, University of California-Berkeley and California College for the Arts. He is named on 58 patents and 25 international design awards.

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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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  Wesley Hall

  Senior Designer, Douglas Elliman

  2021 Design for Social Impact Jury Member

  Wesley Hall, a Senior Designer at Douglas Elliman is a skilled graphic designer, illustrator, and creative consultant with 20 years of experience working with clients to generate design-driven solutions for marketing collateral, instructional design, print, and project management needs. He is the Co-Operator of FLOX Studio.

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  Estelle Bailey-Babenzien

  Business Founder, Creative Director and Interior Designer, Dream Awake Studio

  2022 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Estelle Bailey-Babenzien is of British and Ghanaian descent and was born and raised in the UK. She graduated from Central Saint Martins in London, with an honors degree in Fashion- communication and promotion, and moved straight to New York City. Since then, she has built her career as a creative director in the fields of music, fashion, and interior architecture and design. In 2015, she cofounded the men's/unisex clothing brand Noah with her husband, designer Brendon Babenzien. Noah has two stores in the United States, two stores in Japan, and shop-in-shops in three Dover Street Market stores globally. Simultaneously, Estelle continues to grow her design studio, Dream Awake Design, which focuses on experiential and interior design, and creative direction for commercial and residential projects and brands. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband and their six year-old daughter, Sailor.

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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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  Kevin Bethune

  Founder and Chief Creative Officer, dreams • design + life

  2022 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  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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  Raja Schaar

  Assistant Professor of Product Design, Drexel University

  2018 Consumer Product Jury Member

  Raja Schaar, MAAE, IDSA is an Assistant Professor of Product Design at Drexel University. She is an industrial designer, museum exhibition designer, and STEAM education evangelist. She is an active museum exhibition designer working with community organizations, National Parks, and museums all over the country.
  
  Her interdisciplinary research focuses is on methods engaging girls and underrepresented minorities in STEM/STEAM through design and technology, innovation and entrepreneurship education, healthcare wearables, and biologically inspired design. Her current research collaborations include working with departments of Dance, Education, and computing to uncover STEAM identities in African American girls through the development of performance-driven wearable technology; developing pedagogy with Drexel’s Schools of Biomedical Engineering and Entrepreneurship to examine the role of clinical immersion on product innovation; and working with the college of Nursing to develop a pre-diagnostic wearable device for preeclampsia in low-resource communities.
  
  Before joining Drexel's Product Design faculty, Raja taught at GA Tech in both the Colleges of Design and Engineering.
  
  In addition to her career as an industrial designer and design educator, Raja has also served as the Coordinator of School Programs at the High Museum of Art, and the Director of Programs and Operations at Museum of Design Atlanta. Raja speaks on Industrial Design, STEAM and design education at conferences and workshops all over the US.

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  Raja Schaar

  Program Director and Associate Professor of Product Design, Drexel University Product Design

  2022 Health & Wellness Jury Member

  Raja Schaar, IDSA (she/her) is Director and Associate Professor of the Product Design Program at Drexel University Westphal Collage of Media Arts and Design. She co-chairs IDSA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council is the past Education Director for the organization. Raja studies the ethical implications of design and technology through the lenses of speculative design and climate change. Her current projects address biases maternal health through wearable technology and participatory design; community-based co-design for engaging black girls and underrepresented minorities in STEM/STEAM; and generating frameworks and tools to embed Afrofuturism, biomimicry, sustainability, and climate justice into Design praxis.