Our
Speakers

Interaction designer and educator, I have more than 10 years of experience in the field. Design director of todo.to.it, vice president of Italy's first Fablab I recently co-founded a service for digital nomads to live and work together, on my beloved Italian Alps.

My role as a facilitator is to drive chaos and complexity. Focused on the intersection of design thinking, team dynamics, and digital experiences, I like to expose emerging patterns and leverage them to help teams achieve their goals. As a design thinker, I firmly believe that diversity is essential to leading successful projects and cultures.

I am the Executive Vice President of Design at Rocket Companies, the nation's #1 mortgage lender, where I lead a team focused on transforming the mortgage lending experience for millions of people who want to buy or refinance a home, as well as professional partners across the lending and real estate spectrum. Throughout my career, I have built, scaled and led world-class design teams that elevate the role of design as an organizational competence and a competitive advantage. My experience ranges from startups to Fortune 500 companies spanning the fintech, health, technology and eCommerce industries. I inspire and empower teams to solve problems with a human-centered approach and create meaningful products and experiences that drive successful outcomes.

I am the Director of Impact Innovation at Philosophie where I lead a design practice focused on positive impact for humans and our planet. My work examines the unintended consequences of design while positively shaping the long-term effects for people and the planet. Prior to joining Philosophie, I was the CEO and Co-Founder of NailSnaps, which won an Interaction Award in 2017. Before that, I served as the VP of Experience Design at CP+B where I led holistic digital brand work. I am a devoted member of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) and served as the co-Chair for the 2021 Interaction Design Awards.

Senior Interaction Designer with Bloomberg's Financial Products UX

I am a Senior UX designer at AWS leading designs for new services in the Observability and Analytics vertical. I have previously worked with companies both big and small leading end-to-end design and helping teams set up design-first product development processes, design systems, and accessibility programs. In my career, I have designed for already established, mature and industry-leading products; and more recently, I led design for two new AWS services - CloudWatch Evidently and CloudWatch RUM. In retrospect, I have realized that the challenges, processes, and attitudes for an existing product are significantly different from building something from zero to one where ambiguity is high, and agility is necessary. This talk is a reflection of my experiences on the kind of ambiguities one faces, tools that help in making crucial hypotheses and assumptions, and overall, how to design a new product and take it from zero to one and beyond.

I am a research associate at the Competence Centre for Design and Management research group at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Switzerland. My background is product/industrial design and I am a human-centred design researcher. My doctoral research focuses on how women interact with the domestic bathroom space and its elements providing insights into the use, organisation and experience of the bathroom in the context of Turkey. This work illustrates how design research focuses on human interactions to place the users and their experiences in the centre of an investigation to generate a better understanding of people, their values, and their lifestyles, thus of society. Our talk has a similar approach. We put people in the centre of our research, including all the people involved. We approach the subject from a holistic perspective which provides a better understanding of the problem.

Beatriz Gonzalez Mellidez is an inclusive user experience professional based in Germany, Certified Professional in Web Accessibility CPWA (IAAP’s WAS+CPACC) and User Requirements Engineer (CPUX-UR). She works for Atos as Head of Accessibility and Digital Inclusion Central Europe. She has worked as a UX consultant across several countries and in five languages. Her passion is problem solving for all, no exceptions. As a member of the German UPA (UXPA) she is mostly active in its accessibility working group, which she leads, contributing to best practice publications and the fronta11y.org article series for GAAD in German. Her interest in accessibility dates back to her teenage years creating websites with plain HTML in Spain.

I am a designer, musician, and devout anarchist, currently at YouTube; formerly Airbnb, Inbox by Gmail, and many more.

I am Director of User Experience for the Player Platform at Riot Games. I have an extensive background across multiple industries: video games, enterprise software, consumer hardware, virtual assistants, and philanthropy. I published a book that provides frameworks for multimodal and cross-device design along with design ethics and customer outreach - and it's that environment of seeking extra context that drives this talk.

I am an AI designer at IBM. I co-authored About Face, 4th Edition (Wiley, 2015), and wrote Designing Agentive Technology: AI That Works for People (Rosenfeld Media, 2017).

As a Senior UX Designer at Huge, I create visually compelling interactions and breakthrough experiences that solve complex systematic problems while advocating for the users’ needs. As a design activist, I actively speak about important social issues at conferences, panel discussions as well as through the podcast I host called “Push & Play”, where I discuss the intersection between design, culture, and social issues with numerous guests. Prior to joining Huge, I worked as a Senior UX Designer at Ernst & Young and a Product Designer at Hasbro and Penn Medicine. I hold a Master’s in Integrated Product Design from University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor’s in Product Design from Drexel University.

I run my own CX/UX consultancy. I instruct, advice, and consult on this and other topics. I write and speak on these topics. For yeeeeears. :) I hope that was neutral enough. Please don't use that as my online bio!

As a designer and entrepreneur, Felix has embedded his creative roots in ADPList’s culture, product, and community. He's been featured in media outlets around the globe – on Forbes, Tech in Asia, The Straits Times, and CNBC, to name a few.

I am visual designer (Universidad Nacional de La Plata - Argentina) and I work in the field of user experience since 2003. I am an active volunteer of the UX community since 2010, organizing meetings, events and as a guest, sharing my knowledge and experiences. I am currently Local Leader of IXDA La Plata which, among other things, this year goes through the 4th “Taller UX” season (9 workshops each season). I lead, since 2012, the XD service of Flux IT, a company that, through research, service design, user tests, interaction design and high quality UI design, offers user centric solutions to its customers.

Filippo is a design ethicist, artist and futurist based in London UK. He currently works independently, helping institutions such as the UK Health Security Agency shape strategies on how to make health services more equitable for everyone. Previous roles include UX Principal for Ethical Experiences at the BBC, growing the practice and influencing the strategy of responsible innovation and adoption of technologies such as AI+ML and synthetic media. He has lectured in different courses at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, on subjects ranging from design thinking to future casting. He is co-founding member of artist group IOCOSE, whose work investigates the after-failure moment of narratives surrounding technological development, and has been exhibited in Venice Biennale, Berlin Transmediale, and Tate Modern among other places.

I am an experience designer and researcher fusing disciplines to shape a design process that helps communities and systems adapt to climate change. I have facilitated climate futuring workshops for Climate KIC, IDA, and CIID, and incorporated climate futures into an adaptation project with UNEP-DTU to design services for small businesses affected by flood.

I run Interaction Magic, where I mix design engineering and interaction technology to invent and build future product hardware experiences.

Ghada Wali is the founder of WALI’S STUDIO. As a TED Global Speaker in 2017, she is the youngest female speaker to represent the MENA region on the TED stage. Wali believes that Graphic design can change the world. She is the first Arab designer to speak at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris to celebrate World Arabic Language Day. The multiple-award-winning designer developed an Arabic typeface that was chosen as one of the best 100 graphic design pieces in the world by the Society of Typographic Arts in Chicago. Her work has been featured in art exhibits around the world and showcased in various articles internationally, such as the World Economic Forum, Quartz Africa, Wired Italia & Japan, and Slanted Berlin. Wali’s work won the Granshan competition in Munich and two Adobe Design Achievement awards in San Diego. She has been awarded the AWDA by AIAP in Milan, recognizing influential women in the field. Wali was named to Forbes Europe’s List 2017 (Arts & Immigrants category) – the first Egyptian woman ever to appear in this category. She has been featured on UN Women Egypt and represents the Egyptian Women Council empowerment campaign. Wali holds a BA degree as one of the first design graduates of the German University in Cairo and a MA degree in Design from IED (Istituto Europeo di Design), Florence. Her design experience includes MI7 Cairo, Fortune Promoseven and J. Walter Thompson, as well as teaching Graphic Design in both the German & American Universities in Cairo. Most recently she was the only woman selected to represent the youth of Egypt at the opening of the World Youth Forum Sharm El Sheikh and has been awarded by the president – the first time in Egypt’s history to recognize and award Graphic Design/Visual Communication as a field and the industry as a whole. She was also selected within the top 50 most influential women in Egypt, 2018. She is an experienced international jury member, including the D&AD and Young Guns competitions.

Hamed Yahyaei - Senior UX/CX/Service Designer at Scania & Interaction Design Foundation Europe Manager - I am a senior UX, CX, Service & Strategic Designer at Scania Group in Sweden . I am also co-founder and core team member of VW group digital meetups. Besides, I am involved in Design Leadership & Mentorship on a global scale via various roles such as IxDF Europe Manager and ambassador of UX awards. I am also helping academia as a chosen mentor for Stockholm School of Economics and Lund University. I am honoured to be a trustee and an elected board member of Scania Akademikerföreningen. Furthermore, I am part of Scania Leadership and transition journey working groups of AF, following my passion for Customer Experience and Design Thinking towards sustainable improvement co-creation of Scania Employee Experience.

I'm Design Lead at the Technical Research Centre of Finland, VTT, where my daily work is about creating bridges between innovative technologies and sustainable, human and ethical futures, supporting the research impact's maximisation. I'm aslo PhD candidate in New Media at Aalto University, and also own Masters in Web Design and in Service Innovation and Design. With over 20 years of career, I experienced various design fields, such as Visual, Interaction, Service Innovation and Digital Strategy Design, within multiple projects in different industries and countries. I taught courses on Service Design in the Digital Context at Laurea University and teaches the course Designing Services with New Technologies at Aalto University and Design Thinking in the Gamification Applied to Digital Platforms program at Post PUC Digital. I regularly share my work in publications, workshops and conferences. I believe that design-challenges must be approached holistically and systemically; and that designers can facilitate and engage in the dissolution of any challenge and build a better world.

I started my language coaching company, Artglish, to combine my unique background in art, design, and English. I help creative professionals improve their language skills, so they can tell their stories confidently and succeed faster. I work with artists and designers to improve their portfolio writing, give feedback on presentation skills, and help them prepare for interviews. I’ve taught language skills for creatives at the Academy of Art University and California College of the Arts. I’ve also coached clients at major tech companies, such as Google, Uber, and Yelp to help them achieve their goals through better communication. I’ve given workshops at other design organizations such as AIGA, Design Buddies, and Bridgegood.

Jessica Outlaw is a behavioral scientist and the founder of The Extended Mind. She creates decision tools to advance social and behavioral science into emerging technologies. She focuses on virtual and augmented reality because of their potential to give people new experiences of understanding data, co-locating across distance, and how embodiment can influence decision-making. She is the author of a book on cognitive biases in product development and another on decision-making. She is the creator of the online course the Tech Ethics Toolkit offered Spring every year.

I’m a Senior Product Designer at Mixpanel, and my passion is designing digital tools that empower people and augment their abilities in order to achieve their goals.

Senior service and experience designer at denkwerk, a digital full-service agency in Cologne, Germany. Passionated about language learning and personal development. Brazilian based in Germany. Migrant. Polyglot. Lifelong learner.

I am a designer translating the uncertainty of climate change into tangible experiences. I design participatory interventions that explore how the climate crisis might dramatically change the way we live, work, and play. I run Urban Heat Studio, a future-present studio from and for much hotter cities, and work with international clients such as Climate KIC, steadily growing startups, and cultural institutions. In the past, I have worked on large-scale strategic and service design projects for Fortune 500 companies, microfinance and cleantech startups, and the collective intelligence platform Climate CoLab at MIT. My projects have been exhibited at global galleries and festivals such as the Design Museum, Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, DOX Centre for Contemporary Art and Untitled Festival by Demos Helsinki. I also teach systems thinking and more-than-human design futures, host the monthly Cli-Fi Book Club, and guide experience design teams at Stone Soup.

I am a social impact designer based out of California. At IDEO.org I’m currently a Senior Interaction Designer where I lead teams in prototyping tangibility for our preferred and collaborative futures, with partners such as Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, water.org, and UNDP. My sweet spot is in creating thoughtful experiences and pushing edges through experimentation. I’ve developed and delivered investigative research, strategy, and products/services within innovation labs, startups, and agencies. In the past I’ve also co-founded my own art and design studio fabricating LED installations. Lately, I’m most interested in fostering community through creative collaborations and emerging tech, VJing algorithmic art, and sustainable earth building.

Kahran LaTourette (He/They) is an Indigenous-Japanese mixed race youth peer advocate and student at Evergreen State College. Kahran has lived experience with housing instability and transitional housing that brought him to his work focus on protecting youth's autonomy in support programs and other resources. Kahran was a Library Assistant at the Downtown Library that serves mostly the vulnerable population in the area. Through his work at the library he got in contact with the Office of Homeless Youth (OHY) and became a part of the Youth Homelessness Prevention Steering committee made up of lived experts and Caregivers. After 6 months of working with OHY, Kahran left his position at the library and continues to work with other organizations on youth homelessnesses prevention and support.

I am a UX lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland and a UX Lead in health-tech company in Switzerland. For the last 12 years, I have been working in many digital design related fields, but during last 5 years, I specialized in designing digital products for health industry. With academic background, I am able to connect the dots between science and business.

As a multiple practitioner, my work has its foundation on human experience and participatory action by engaging with cultural production and community work. I have been working as a designer for twenty years and I have dedicated the last ten years to the open source community and industry. Nowadays I build R&D processes and coordinate releases at Arduino, the open source hardware and software company that democratizes technology reach. When it comes to research, I study different communities ranging from marginalized imprisoned groups doing art workshops, to female and non binary experimental sound artists to make their production visible from a gender and cultural perspective.

10+ years experience in Experience Strategy & Design across US, SouthAmerica, Europe and India for clients in the public and private sectors. Leandro has an extensive experience crafting and shipping consumer-focused products for multiple clients and industries, bringing a broader and strategic perspective to every project he gets involved. Currently Head of Design at Monstarlab. Former Director of Design at Globant. Graduated from the National University of La Plata, Argentina, Leandro spent his career as an interaction designer for several companies with a focus on humanizing technology. He was a professor in the Design career at the University of La Plata and has given various talks on user-centered design. He currently resides in New York where he is in charge of Monstarlab's Design Strategy and Product department, developing the global vision and mission for teams in the US, Latin America and Europe. During his extensive career, Leandro participated in the development of a Design Studio department growing a team from 5 designers to 300 in 5 years. He worked for prominent clients such as Electronic Arts, Apple, and led teams that launched multiple digital products for New York City public transportation MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority of NYC). Leandro genuinely believe in design as an enabler of humanizing technology to improve people's lives, and a strong advocate of the concept of Good Design as the intersection of function and beauty.

A UX leader, I began my career as a full stack developer, working for start ups and Fortune 500 companies, I then grew into roles as a UI/UX engineer, project manager, then people leader and agile coach for software teams. I specialize in growing high performing teams of developers and designers and strategic process improvement.

Matteo Loglio is a co-founder at oio - a creative company on a quest to turn emerging technologies into an approachable, everyday and sustainable reality for humans and beyond. Previously a designer at Google Creative Lab and a design director and co-founder of the ed-tech startup Primo Toys, Matteo designs products for innovation companies such as IDEO, Waag, Nesta, Arduino, IKEA, among many others, and his work is sometimes exhibited in places such as MoMA in New York, V&A in London, or Triennale Museum in Milan.

Senior service and experience designer at denkwerk, a digital full-service agency in Cologne, Germany. Driven by gamification, fuelled by a background in e-learning, through combining constructivist pedagogy and co-design games, I look to foster learning moments and interactions that often translate into playful or subversive activities. American, struggling with the German language everyday.

I'm Pablo Marquevichi, Head of Experience Design at Flux IT. My lifelong passions are technology and design products. Besides, I believe that life is a journey to learn. I have a Master's degree in Creative Writing, a Bachelor's degree in Digital and Interactive Communication, and a degree in Film and Television Production. While teaching, my aim is not only to pass on knowledge but to train students in the critical thinking that every UX designer should master. I try to encourage curiosity as a way of interaction between the rational and the creative facets. My purpose is to train students in design and also, to transmit to them the value that design has to contribute to developing a better society. My professional career includes working in audiovisual production, market research, programming, and advertising fields. I have worked in different areas and countries. I lived five years in Barcelona and one year in London before returning to Buenos Aires for good. I am also a writer. I have published short stories in several Spanish and Argentine anthologies, and, recently, my first novel.

Senior Director of Product Design at ServiceNow

I'm a collaborative influencer and an avid design method experimenter inspired by empowering and mentoring new creatives to achieve success on their terms. I'm currently designing for impact at Auth0 and have previously worked for companies including Shopify and Capital One. I'm the founder of Markham UX Meetup and content creator on Youtube, with the intent to provide new designers with an accessible, welcoming path into the discipline. I graduated with a Bachelor's in Biochemistry from the University of Guelph. After failing to become the next Einstein, I bid farewell to put on my designer genes and pursue a new avenue. When I'm not designing, you might find me playing with my dog Benji, experimental cooking, or challenging myself with different workouts.

As the Production and Creative Team Lead at Access Now, Sage Cheng leads the organization’s design and creative strategy for campaigns and web development for digital engagement. With a problem-solving design thinking, she develops human-rights-centered user engagement, builds data visualization to amplify impact, and brands for RightsCon. Sage has a background in advertising and publishing. Her previous work includes branding for NYC Department of Education’s iZone initiative and event design for Red Bull’s Human Potential Institution. Sage holds a MFA in Communications Design from Pratt Institute. She practices art in her spare time to examine the relationship between human and machine, individual and society.

Sami is a design leader working at the intersection of systems, foresight and design. What he does daily is help teams, products and companies to become more resilient by making the right choices about their futures and business, and build teams, capabilities and organisations to support this in quest long term. Over 20 years in the industry, he's worked on several continents, earning international patents, numerous awards and built exits to the largest companies in the world. He’s organised and spoken at numerous industry events ranging from co-chairing Interaction 16 in Helsinki to local meet-ups (IxDA Helsinki) to being invited to speak at at Google in San Francisco. Currently, he is one of the founders and the creative director at Nordkapp, a strategic design and innovation consultancy based in Helsinki and Amsterdam, and working globally. He is also an exhibited artist exploring the human potential in generative networks and machine learning.

Hello, I’m a Product Design Director at an online marketplace called notonthehighstreet, where I focus on connecting UK small businesses with customers looking for creative products in a unique and meaningful way. I’m also the Director and Founder of UX for Change, a global organisation that for the last six years has connected non-profit organisations with the UX community. I’m currently trying to figure out how to scale collaboration globally, while inspiring design excellence. My design work spans from heavily visited ecommerce platforms to technology for aiding refugees. I would like to discuss the topic of growth with three different lenses: Leadership, Empathy and Trauma. I’m focused on the posttraumatic growth that emerges from navigating complex systems of inequality as an underrepresented minority.

I'm a futures-oriented design thinker with 15+ year of experience in creating digital product and service concepts and transformed myself from digital product/interaction designer to full-time futures researher and strategic designer. I'm currently working at Deloitte Digital in Helsinki where I'm working with interesting challenges at which I can combine my background and expertise in design thinking with my passion for futures thinking. My superpower is combining abstract with tangible and showing people how futures are made with our actions today.

I am an equity-centered system change Principal Service Designer with experience across sectors (tech, philanthropy, global health and government) and a background in Interaction Design. I have been (re)designing systems with a strong racial equity, inclusion and social justice mindset. My past experience includes end-to-end user experience expertise; including design strategy and research. I was previously co-designing policy, technology and services with lived experts, community based organizations and government stakeholders in foster care, homelessness, disability and juvenile legal system. I'm currently leading equity-centered design work in the post secondary space. My practice grounded in trauma informed design research, targeted universalism, co-design and complex systems theory. I am a strong proponent of evolving the design practice to be anti-racist, decolonized and systems thinking oriented.

Suné was born and raised in Cape Town where she still lives, works and plays. She is the co-founder, custodian and CEO of Open Design Afrika (ODA), a social enterprise and not for profit company. She is a designer, social entrepreneur, design activist and educator who strongly believes in the power of creativity as a change agent and catalyst to drive and scale systemic change - to develop a future-making culture of problem solvers and change makers who can confidently add value to the greater good, drive the UN SDG’s agenda and contribute to the design of regenerative economies, thriving communities and flourishing environments. ODA was designed as a key platform and vehicle to drive these important agendas. Suné has published extensively and was one of the key drivers behind convincing the National Department of Basic Education in South Africa (SA) to introduce Design as a subject choice at secondary school level. Back in 2006 SA was the very first country in the world to introduce the subject Design at this level. She contributed to the new curriculum in an advisory capacity and later stepped in as the contributing editor for the first Design textbooks and teacher manuals for grades 10-12 which are still in use today. She was the designer, concept and content developer of the Woolworths “Making the Difference Through Design” (MTDTD) program - a finalist in the 2009 INDEX: Design to Improve Life® Awards. Suné was also an assistant researcher for the WDC2014 (World Design Capital) bid in Cape Town and contributed to the initial development phase of the Western Cape Design Strategy (a first for Africa). Currently, she also serves on Cape Town’s UNESCO City of Design team and is a proud member of the Pan-Asia Network.

As the Product Design Director, my role is to establish the team’s vision but also guide individual team members into new exciting territories. As a designer, what drives me the most is finding that unique insight, the competitive edge and infallible user experience. As a manager, what motivates me is setting up a structure that allows team members to experiment, evolve, and have confidence in themselves.

Tanu is a User Experience Lead at IBM Canada, currently working on how AI can demystify complexities in data consumption for businesses. In her past life, she has worked on innovations in consumer tech, wealth management and digital manufacturing space. Her breadth of work spans from creating digital experiences for low-cost smartphones for developing economies, intelligent voice assistants to cracking complex systems to build applications for tech companies like Samsung Research, SAP and IGM Financial Inc. You can find her trying out new tools, tinkering with gadgets, learning about new cultures, or gardening in her free time.

Strategic, service and UX designer based in Sao Paulo. I use my communication, facilitation and design skills to work with companies that have a purpose connected to my desire to transform the world we live in. And then, I make all this tangible in services, digital products or in materials in my workshops to educate and engage the community.

Vivianne Castillo (she/her) is the Founder of HmntyCntrd, an award-winning organization that's committed to transforming the status quo of what it means to be human-centered in our professional and personal lives through community, courses, and consulting. She brings 8+ years of psychology and research experience spanning multiple contexts, cultures, and industries and her work and opinions have been written about in Slate, Fortune, Huffington Post, Fast Company, ELLE Magazine and has a strong track record influencing executives, educating others on trauma-informed care, & empowering others to challenge the status quo. Vivianne also has international conference speaking experience and was an invited speaker at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit in 2019. Prior to her career in the UX & Tech Industry, Vivianne worked primarily in the arenas of human services and counseling, where she tackled issues like shame, empathy, vulnerability and compassion. She credits her previous experience as a human services professional, her multi-cultural upbringing, and her love for cognitive behavioral psychology as major influences on her approach to entrepreneurship, design, and innovation.