Tuesday, August 6

Wednesday, August 7

8:00 - 8:45 

Registration and Networking, Coffee/ Tea

8:00 - 8:45 

Registration and Networking, Coffee/ Tea

8:45 - 8:50 

Conference Welcome
Carole Bilson, President, Design Management Institute

8:45 - 8:50 

Welcome
Carole Bilson, President, Design Management Institute

9:00 - 9:45 

Keynote Speaker
Fleur Deken, PhD

9:00 - 9:45 

Keynote Panel
AI, Technology, and Design 

Concurrent Paper Presentations and R+B Sessions
(Lunch - Time TBD)

Concurrent Paper Presentations and R+B Sessions
(Lunch - Time TBD)

Reception (Details TBD)

Conference End

Mission-Driven Innovation: How Design Leadership can Tackle Complex Societal Challenges

Fleur Deken, PhD

Full Professor Strategy, Technology & Innovation, University Research Chair, KIN Center for Digital Innovation, School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

In this keynote talk, Fleur Deken will reflect on the role of design in leading mission-driven innovation. Drawing on her empirical research, she will share a variety of real-world case studies to describe the new organizational competencies/capabilities that are required to succeed at mission-driven innovation.

About Fleur Deken, PhD

Fleur Deken was trained in industrial design engineering and psychology before she pursued her PhD in innovation management. She is currently a Full Professor of Strategy, Technology & Innovation and University Research Chair at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, School of Business & Economics. She currently leads a Dutch Science Foundation funded research project on collaborative capabilities for mission-driven innovation and studies the process of scaling innovative solutions for societal challenges in the research network ‘Fieldlabs@Scale’

AI, Technology, and Design

Daria (Dasha) Simons

Trustworthy AI SME for North Central Eastern Europe at IBM

Bas Raijmakers, PhD

Creative Director, Stby (Netherlands and London)

Daria and Bas join DMI president, Carole Bilson in a moderated panel discussion on AI, Technology, and Design.  Audience questions will be included as part of the discussion.

About Daria (Dasha) Simons

As a Trustworthy AI lead Northern Europe Consulting, Dasha had an active role in supporting the set-up for IBM Global Trustworthy AI Center of Excellence (500+ members) across IBM Research, Consulting and Technology. In her projects, she advises Fortune 500 companies, governments, and start-ups from operational- to C-level on Trustworthy AI & AI Governance. She is the EMEA & UKI Trustworthy AI training lead at IBM and frequently speaks at events and conferences. Next to that she is a team member of Europe direct, supporting the representation of the European perspectives on Trustworthy AI in the Netherlands for the European Commission. In 2019 she won the best graduate prize of TU Delft on Industrial Design Engineering on the topic of Design for Fairness in AI.

About Bas Raijmakers, PhD.

Bas Raijmakers PhD, RCA, co-founded Stby in London, and Amsterdam in 2003. Stby is a design research studio for positive and meaningful change. Bas has been involved with a wide range of different design research projects, for clients such as Thomson Reuters, Vodafone, Google, Spotify, YouTube, the city of Amsterdam, the Design Council, Nesta, the NHS and What Design Can Do. He co-founded the Reach Network for global design research in 2008, and he developed Design Documentaries as a design research approach at the Royal College of Art and has regularly published and spoken about his work since 1993 when he co-founded his first company.

Northumbrian Water Group + Royal College of Art

Dr Ninela Ivanova, Innovation Fellow: Inclusive Design for Business Impact, Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art
Jennie Collingwood, Head of Corporate Affairs, Northumbrian Water Group

Inclusive Innovation in Water Services

This collaboration is an evolving partnership between the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design (HHCD) at London's Royal College of Art and Northumbrian Water Group (NWG). Over the last two years they worked together to embed people-centredness and inclusivity within everyday business and service design.

Beginning in 2022 the HHCD team ran a six-month program on creative leadership and inclusive innovation for 34 of NWG’s innovation leaders.  Outcomes of the programme ranged from workplace solutions to customer communications and campaigns. Following on from the programme the HHCD joined Northumbrian Water’s 2022 and 2023 Innovation Festivals as an Inclusive Innovation partner. This involved the co-design and co-delivery of design sprints with diverse cohorts of water services stakeholders, to develop stronger customer-centric communications with a particular focus on supporting better vulnerable customers. Additionally, Two Award-winning innovation student graduates formed WATERAWARE COLLECTIVE and went on to create the Smart Tow Float Dry Bag through using low-cost hardware, high tech software and citizen science to make mass scale water quality testing cheaper.

Ninela and Jennie will present the different models of knowledge exchange that have shaped their ongoing collaboration.  They will focus on the value of design-led and people-centred approaches to transform everyday business thinking and practice, and the range of outputs and outcomes.

Studio Carbon + Boston College

Prof. Sunand Bhattacharya, Associate Vice Provost, Design & Innovation Strategies, Professor of the Practice, Human-centered Design, Boston College
Prof. Tam H. Nguyen, PhD MSN/MPH RN, Associate Professor, William F Connell School of Nursing, Boston College
Itika Gupta, CEO (Europe/Africa), Studio Carbon

The Boston College ‘Design Commons Collective’ Story

In 2012, Boston College (BC) in an unprecedented move for a higher education institution, decided to bring in a design firm, to assist in rethinking its Core Curriculum using design thinking. The success of this initiative led to BC’s revamped ‘Core Renewal’. Which then triggered a newfound affinity toward design-driven thinking processes on an institutional level which led to the design and implementation of BC’s very first Human-Centered Engineering program as well as the construction of an innovation building in 2021. To further the design agenda, BC’s ‘Design Commons Collective’, a well-curated strategic initiative, was introduced to offer both undergraduate and graduate level academic credit-bearing design courses, as well as, beyond-the-classroom experiences. Case studies will be shared, from some of the 6 external collaborators (Epam Continuum, Center for Disease Control (CDC), The Joslin Diabetes Center, Quincy Asian Resources, Inc. (QARI), Moore Foundation, Studio Carbon), to further demonstrate the impact of this Design-driven initiative.

3M + Philips + Universite Paris X

Eric Quint, Former SVP, Chief Brand and Design Officer at 3M Company, and former VP, Head of Design Management and Consulting at Royal Philips. Co-author “Design Leadership Ignited.”
Brigitte Borja de Mozota, Honorary professor Université Paris X, DMI Life Fellow, latest book co-author: “Strategic Design for a Responsible Future.”

Inform + Inspire: Academia and industry collaboration as a catalyst to drive future design value.

Brigitte and Eric will share their experiences and real-life stories of design value creation through academia and industry collaborations, starting with a dialogue on their most recently research-based design books ‘Strategic Design for a Responsible Future’ (2024) and ‘Design Leadership Ignited’ (2022). They are both pioneers and thought leaders in the fields of design leadership, design management, design research, strategic design, branding, and innovation. Their lessons learned and approaches to the often complex, ever-changing, and ambiguous context of design management will inform and inspire the audience with their future vision of strategic design, leadership and education that will highlight new research themes. As the challenges we face become increasingly complex and systemic in nature, this will call for a dramatically changing approach to design leadership and management that must be strategic, fearless, and collaborative to create meaning and progress for the world moving forward.

SLEEPLABS + CARLETON UNIVERSITY + JKLU

Tim Haats, Assistant Professor, Carleton University, School of Industrial Design
Prakash Naidu, Head of Research, SleepLabs

Innovation, Design, and Development of a Novel Snoring and Obstructive Sleep Apnea Prevention Device

Individuals suffering from sleep-related breathing disorders, such as sleep apnea, exhibit moderate to excessive snoring which is often ignored or neglected.  This neglect can increase the risk of more severe health problems such as stroke, hypertension, chronic heart failure, diabetes, and many others.  Moreover, an Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) episode – characterized by periodic and repetitive collapsing of the upper airway during sleep – can be life threatening.  Although solutions exist to treat sleep-related breathing disorders like OSA, such as Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) and oral appliances including Mandibular Advancement Devices (MADs), there are several issues relating to cost, comfort, and convenience with the products that are on the market today.  This applied design research project, in partnership between SleepLabs and Professor Tim Haats of Carleton University, explored the development of a novel snoring and obstructive sleep apnea prevention device that addresses these issues.  Various design concepts, configurations, and production processes were investigated to address the needs of the target user, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements of the business.  The project concluded with a set of innovative design solutions and new intellectual property that has led to patent applications as well as new long-term partnership opportunities.

Tim Haats is an experienced product designer, entrepreneur, researcher, and educator with expertise in product development and small business management.  As an Assistant Professor in the School of Industrial Design at Carleton University, Tim utilizes his practical skills, knowledge, and passion for design and business to explore the relationship between design and entrepreneurship, and how emerging design practices support innovation.  More particularly, Tim’s research revolves around design-driven entrepreneurship and innovation, and the application of design methodologies to develop meaningful and effective product solutions.

Dr. Prakash Naidu is currently the Head of Research at SleepLabs, a start-up company based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, focusing on innovative dental sleep appliances.  The company researches, develops, and distributes a range of tailor-made dental sleep appliances aimed at improving functionality and enhancing the quality of life for individuals suffering from obstructive sleep apnea, teeth grinding, snoring, and other sleep-related disorders.

Dr. Naidu is also a professional engineer with vast experience in the bio-medical, advanced manufacturing, robotics, and automation industries, including project and business management involving new product development, taking innovations towards patentability.  He has worked in or has been affiliated with leading institutions, laboratories, and industry as well as start-ups and SMEs in the UK, US, Canada, and India in various capacities.

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