Jury Alumni

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  Charles Erdman

  Head of Product Design, Small Planet

  2021 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Charley is a creative executive building value at the intersection of human behavior and technology. He sees his job as helping energize digital teams to imagine strategically; think laterally; and create efficiently. Charley has led cross-functional teams building digital products and communications for Fortune 500 clients such as Adobe, Microsoft, Charles Schwab, Comcast, Disney, Lucas Film, and Intuit. He learned his craft at world-class agencies like Ogilvy, Razorfish, the Amp Agency, CP+B, and now Brooklyn-based, Small Planet.

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  Heather Martin

  Vice President of Design, Smart Design

  2016 Consumer Product Jury Member

  Heather is the Vice President of Design at Smart Design, a design and innovation consultancy. She leads multidisciplinary global teams on large-scale digital projects across all industry sectors from Smart’s London studio.
  
  She has worked in design for 18 years throughout Europe and is recognized as one of the leading authorities in interaction design. In order to learn more about software development, she studied interaction design at the Royal College of Art in London. After graduating, she worked at the RCA as a visiting tutor and Research Fellow and co-founded the Appliance Design Studio between the RCA, IDEO and Hewlett-Packard Labs. In 2000, she joined IDEO where she worked as a senior interaction designer and project lead for the Prada NYC flagship store with OMA/Rem Koolhaas.
  
  Throughout her career, she has kept a keen interest in education. In 2003, she moved to Italy to work as an Associate Professor at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII), where she specialized in tangible computing and became the Academic Director. In 2006, she moved to Denmark where she co-founded the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID). Positioned as a design school, consultancy and research lab specializing in interaction design, CIID was listed as one of the world’s best design schools by Business Insider in 2012.
  
  Her client work spans transportation, finance, healthcare, media, telecom, retail and automotive. She is a regular speaker in Europe and her work has been recognised through international press and design prizes, including a Gold and Bronze Business Week Awards for her work with Prada. She was also listed as one of the 40 most influential designers in the world under the age of 40 by Wallpaper Magazine and was recently a judge for the Braun Prize 2015. She has a bachelor’s degree in product design from the University of Northumbria and a master’s degree in interaction design from the Royal College of Art.

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  Stephanie Yung

  Design Director, Smart Design

  2020 Health & Wellness Jury Captain

  As Design Director at Smart Design’s New York studio, Stephanie has led projects across the continuum of wellness products and services including: public health, pharmaceuticals, devices, personal care, fitness, and reproductive health. Her personal journey of redesigning the fertility treatment experience as a single woman to be more accessible to all—which she called Project Junior—garnered national attention and was featured in Fast Company and 99u.
  
  In her spare time, Stephanie has shared her expertise in strategic design innovation with audiences ranging from venture capitalists to government agencies; across topics including—designing for social impact, saving women from bad design, and inclusive design. Stephanie also serves on the Board of Advisors as the user-centered design expert for Simprints, a non-for-profit tech company hoping to close the identification gap of over 1 billion people in emerging countries.

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  Kelly Nyland

  Director of Marketing, Snapchat

  2016 Open Design Jury Member

  As one of the foremost marketing leaders in the tech industry, particularly in the hardware & start-up communities, Kelly's unparalleled go-to-market strategy, unconventional marketing prowess, and ability to grow small business to a global scale, make her one of this industry's most coveted executives.
  
  Pioneer leader in educating general consumers about the value of new technologies while bringing hi-tech experiences to market, Kelly enjoys the thrill of braving new frontiers in establishing category-leading products and shepherding the ever-changing customer journey. She is adept at capturing the hearts of early adopters and leveraging their influence as brands & products tip over into mass market.

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  Sarah Drummond

  Co-founder, Snook

  2017 Service Design Jury Captain

  Sarah is the Co-founder and managing Director of Snook, an award winning design consultancy working at the forefront of civic, public sector and democratic innovation. Sarah focuses on making social change happen by re-thinking public services from a human perspective.
  
  Sarah co-founded Snook alongside Lauren Currie in 2009 and in her 7 years experience has worked with a vast array of public, private and third sector clients predominately across health, mental health and social care, education, civic and local authority and education to design services that work for people.
  
  Aside from design she loves Cycling and DJs part time.
  
  She speaks regularly about design, innovation (aka making things better) and entrepreneurialism (aka taking risks on making things happen).

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  Rotimi Solola

  Founder, SO Dsgn

  2023 Home & Living Jury Captain

  Rotimi Solola is an award-winning industrial designer and the founding partner of SO Dsgn, a Chicago-based creative agency focused on story-driven brand and industrial design. In addition, Solola is an educator, having taught at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Chicago, he values mentorship, community, and design education. Prior to his current roles, Solola worked as a member of Motorola’s Consumer Experience Design team where he acquired much of his knowledge of bringing products to market. Solola stays involved with the design community by giving public lectures, judging design competitions, and mentoring students, and young professionals.

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  Rachael Dietkus

  Founder, Social Workers Who Design

  2022 Health & Wellness Jury Member

  Rachael is the founder of Social Workers Who Design and speaks publicly about, educates on, and advocates for greater awareness to the value of social work in design, as well as responsible and respectful trauma responsive, healing focused, and care centered design practices and research. Her current work draws from north of 20 years of experience across serious and complex cause-driven social justice issues in health and human rights, student rights advocacy, housing and homelessness services, and teaching and program management at the intersection of social work, social impact, and design in higher education.

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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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  Dayn Wilberding

  Director of Design, Exploration, Sonos

  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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  Michelle Enright

  Director, Packaging Experience & Visual Design, Sonos, Incl

  2023 Packaging Jury Member

  As Director of Packaging Experience & Visual Design, Michelle is responsible for leading a world-class team of industrial and visual designers that crafts premium, sustainable packaging experiences. Michelle is a mom of three and often thinks about the world she will leave behind. She is passionate about making sustainability progress for Sonos’ packaging.
  
  Michelle led and directed efforts for our latest packaging design system updates, which launched with Sonos Roam. Prior to Sonos, she designed visual identity systems for packaging on the VIBE team at Dell in Austin, Texas. Michelle embraced everything she could learn at Dell and was inspired by the design team she was a part of. Prior to Dell, Michelle built & led an in-house design team for a sunglasses company, which is now part of Foster Grant.
  
  Michelle graduated from California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo with a Bachelor of Science in Applied Art & Design and is currently a Packaging Advisory Board member, Industrial Technology & Packaging at Cal Poly.

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  Pinar Guvenc

  Partner, SOUR

  2024 Home & Living Jury Member

  Pinar Guvenc is a partner of SOUR, an international, award-winning hybrid design studio with the mission to address social and urban problems through sustainable, adaptive, and inclusive methodologies. They are doing so by active end-user involvement and co-creation sessions throughout the design process. In addition to managing the business operations, Pinar also leads strategic planning, design research, and partnerships of the studio.
  Pinar is also part-time faculty at Parsons School of Design, School of Design Strategies, and serves on the Board of Directors of Open Style Lab, a nonprofit organization initiated at MIT, with the purpose of making style accessible to people of all abilities. She created and teaches a strategic collaborations workshop series for the Pratt Center for Community Development and the Made in NYC initiative. She is also the author and instructor of the Inclusive Design class for the School of Visual Arts MFA Interaction Design, which is the first multidisciplinary inclusive design graduate course in the United States.
  Pinar is a frequent public speaker and a guest lecturer and hosts the panels and podcasts of What's Wrong With, a series of discussions and podcasts with progress makers and experts to diagnose real problems, ideate solutions, and raise awareness to the general public.
  Pinar has a BSc in Industrial Engineering and MSc in Economics & Finance.

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  Georgina McDonald

  Creative & Partnerships, SPACE10

  2023 Speculative Design Jury Member

  Over the past 12-years, Georgina has worked on an eclectic mix of projects from exhibition design, research reports, digital and print collateral, graphic identities, and book design. Since June 2018, Georgina was the Lead Design Producer at SPACE10, a non-profit research and design lab fully-funded and dedicated to IKEA. For the past three years Georgina was leading Everyday Experiments; a series of digital experiments exploring how advanced technologies can better our everyday lives at home. Georgina is currently working with Creative & Partnerships on the Playful Research team at SPACE10 investigating the potential opportunities that lay between generative AI and design and architecture. Before moving to Denmark, Georgina worked with Natasha Jen at Pentagram Design. She has called Copenhagen home for nearly five years. She is originally from Australia.

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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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  Jon Levy

  SVP M&A & Venture, Spin Master

  2024 Toys & Play Jury Member

  Jon Levy joined the Spin Master Ventures team in 2021. A passionate entrepreneur in the children’s entertainment industry, Jon co-founded Mastermind Toys, a highly successful Canadian retail toy chain, in 1984. From a niche beginning selling educational computer games for children, Jon’s vision grew into a passion to find the very best of everything kids would be excited to play with and learn from. During his career, he developed a unique expertise for curation, presentation, and marketing toys, defining the Mastermind Toys experience
  
  He now brings his experience cultivating life-long partnerships with toy inventors and creators from around the world and decades of business development acumen to Spin Master Ventures. Jon is continuing his life’s passion to find the most talented entrepreneurs; unique start ups and creative inventors by traveling the world and engaging with disrupters in the industry. At Spin Master Ventures, he is focused on finding the right opportunities to invest in the future of play and accelerate growth through partnering with the aspiring toy business leaders of tomorrow.

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  Divya Chaurasia

  Sr. Industrial Designer and UX Lead, Spitfire Industry

  2024 Home & Living Jury Member

  Divya Chaurasia is an award-winning industrial designer, with a background in engineering. An expert in user-centered research, sustainable practices and design for manufacturing, she has a Masters in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute, New York and Bachelor’s in Technology from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India.
  
  Currently, Divya works as a senior industrial designer and user experience lead at Spitfire Industry, a design consultancy based in Brooklyn, New York. She designs products and experiences for brands like Clorox, All Clad, Tefal, Bausch & Lomb, Cook’s Direct, Hunter Douglas, GoTrax, and Nectar. Divya’s work is inspired by the everyday pursuits of people. She is fascinated by the connection between humans, objects and environments, and captures this relationship in delightfully functional products. Her work has been exhibited at NYCxDesign and NYC Media Lab Annual Summit and received recognition by Chicago Athenaeum Good Design Award and International Design Awards.

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  Barton Smith

  Product Designer, Spotify

  2019 Strategy & Research Jury Member

  Barton is a Product Designer based in New York, many miles from his hometown in Australia. He's currently at Spotify designing creative tools for artists and previously worked at FiftyThree, Facebook and Fuseproject. He equally loves working on complex systems and dynamic interfaces, and spends a lot of time thinking about the movement of culture, trends and ideas.