Schedule

2021 Conference Schedule. Note: Topics and speaks may change.
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  • Day 1

    August 5, 2021

  • Welcome to the conference. Take this time to get accumulated to the conference software and chat with your fellow attendees.
    Where
    Main Stage

  • As we continue to push innovation, we’re watching the gaps of inequities and inequalities grow wider. This is especially evident with so many products today, as designs that work perfectly for most people, usually do not work well for kids. But kids' perceptions and experiences matter because they now make up an essential audience for many websites and apps (e.g Zoom). Especially since owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning has more or less become necessary among kids of all ages. It is our responsibility as designers to understand that every design decision we make has the potential to include or exclude people. Therefore, there is a need to make sure that our solutions can extend to as many people as reasonably possible regardless of age, context, or situation. Having designed for kids myself, I will be sharing practical tips on how to better address this by specifically considering children’s wants and needs in the design process. We will also cover the subtle differences and a few similarities between designing for kids and designing for adults, in a bid to consider people of all ages.
    DEI
    Where
    Main Stage

  • It takes only 8 seconds for a person with a disability to determine whether or not your website, documentation, or mobile application will be usable for them. People with disabilities represent $8 trillion in discretionary spending, and including their first degree friends and family, represent 51 % of all spending globally. Not only is there the potential loss of revenue for not making your digital properties accessible, failing to account for people with disabilities as customers or users presents an enormous legal risk. Almost 4000 companies in the US were sued for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act in 2020 alone (and that's with the courts shut for 3 months due to COVID) almost double the 2018 and 2019 figures. Learn how following the global WCAG accessibility guidelines in design, development, and content management as well as doing user research specifically with users with disabilities will help your company be more inclusive while reducing risk and increasing customer satisfaction.
    DEI
    Where
    Main Stage

  • House Keeping & Close of Session and Day
    Where
    Main Stage

  • You can enjoy your lunch with us while listening to the recent episodes of our podcast.

  • In this interactive session, learners will hear about real-experiences, headache, heartache, and triumph in building DEI strategies as well as the six action-based "Ds" of creating a multi-year, buildable, and sustainable DEI strategic framework. Learners will jump right in and craft a high-level DEI strategic plan that can incorporate their organizational values and cultural DNA attributes and embed some best and next practices. We will also explore how to gain executive buy-in and sponsorship, formation of an internal diversity council, and the fortitude and patience required for this “over time, not overnight” journey.
    DEI
    Where
    Workshop

  • As a certified Luma practitioner, someone in both the giving and receiving ends of diversity initiatives and a Software Engineer for over 7 years, I know that the use of the human-centred design in diversity projects and initiatives cannot be overemphasized. Using the LUMA methodology, this is a hands-on workshop that will start from the preliminary and end with a definite project that the workshop attendees can use immediately at work. Is it possible to design diversity initiatives for the next billion users and not think about human-centred Design? well that is not possible and that is why the workshop will cover these essentials; Looking- Methods of observing human experience. Understanding - Methods to analyse challenges and opportunities Making -Methods of envisioning future possibilities. You see, most people just jump to three and that is what kills the product. Since you want to design for the next billion users, shouldn't we start by LOOKING and UNDERSTANDING the users first before MAKING?
    DEI
    Design
    Where
    Workshop

  • Wikipedia Edit-A-Thons are a network of grassroots events that combat Wikipedia’s biases by having participants improve articles of notable individuals from underrepresented groups. Notable individuals from minority groups are less likely to have a Wikipedia page, and those that do tend to have less robust ones. This affects everything from industry recognition to salaries and who receives Nobel Prizes. Together we'll explore the impetus for the Wikimedia Foundation creating and expanding Edit-A-Thons, how to start you own, and highlights from Edit-A-Thons that have succeeded as well as those that have gone disastrously wrong.
    DEI
    Design
    Where
    Workshop

  • Day 2

    August 6, 2021

  • Key Takeaways: •Understanding of why few qualified individuals of Diversity work in IT •Strategies that technology companies can use to recruit more qualified people of diversity in the IT world •Novel recruitment policies that will enable technology companies to employ more qualified Minorities
    Where
    Workshop

  • Poorly run & unorganized meetings come at a high cost to businesses both financially and culturally. What if our work environments could produce more meaningful and fruitful outcomes? In this interactive workshop, Douglas will share practical strategies to make your meetings more productive. 3-5 Key Audience Takeaways: You will learn 4 meeting mantras and how to implement them that will ensure your meetings to be more resilient. With the move to distributed teams, it's more important than ever for us to focus on shorter, essential meetings. Our 4 meeting mantras include: 1. Do the work in the meeting 2. Disagree and commit 3. Capture room intelligence 4. Contribute value or leave I know you all want to have better meetings. You’re committed to having better outcomes for your companies and doing innovative things. But the force of habit is strong - this could be
    DEI
    Where
    Workshop

  • Learn the foundations of a scientific problem-solving approach that uses insights from the fields of behavioral economics and social science to develop and design solutions that change behaviors for irrational beings, us humans.
    Design
    Where
    Workshop

  • As designers, we take pride in what we do. Creating experiences to improve the lives of many despite the constraints of budgets, technology, and the like. As designers of color, we’re forced to live, work & exist in a world where we are mislabeled, falsely categorized, and dismissed. In this session we’ll get vulnerable and examine the constraints we impose on ourselves and breaking free to design change in our careers and beyond.
    Design
    Where
    Main Stage

  • Poorly run & unorganized meetings come at a high cost to businesses both financially and culturally. What if our work environments could produce more meaningful and fruitful outcomes? In this interactive workshop, Douglas will share practical strategies to make your meetings more productive.
    DEI
    Where
    Main Stage

  • Day 3

    August 7, 2021

  • When designing with and in communities, the design process can easily fall into the trap of reinforcing the power imbalances, oppressive structures, and destructive savior-saved relationships that underpin many of the issues social sector designers seek to respond to. That’s in part because the predominant modes of design taught and practiced today place the designer at the center of the design process, where the designer claims the expertise, authority, and power to envision and execute design. Beyond what we reinforce by staying at the center is what we lose: the opportunity for design to be an experience that builds power, elevates local leadership, and creates new social capital and solidarity. In this talk, I will share a framework and tangible methods for how designers can make structural changes to the design process to decenter themselves and, in doing so, move towards a more transformative definition of design.
    Design

  • The goal of this workshop is to create a psychologically safe space to talk about the methods and principles of practicing trauma-informed and trauma-responsive design. There is both value and an opportunity for designers to learn about and understand different forms of trauma and how this often presents in our design work - from design research to scoping prospective projects, to navigating colleagues and executives in small to large firms. Adopting a trauma-responsive approach in design cannot be accomplished through any singular particular technique or checklist. It requires constant attention, compassionate awareness, care and sensitivity, and cultural acknowledgment and change at an organizational level. In this workshop, we’ll define what trauma is and how it might appear in our work with participants and with our colleagues. We’ll discuss a variety of triggers and what trauma can do in the body. Participants will take time to recognize and name the variety of aspects of their design practice that may be triggering, traumatizing, or retraumatizing. We’ll also define what trauma-informed, healing-centered, and trauma-responsive means and have participants ideate and synthesize how they can shift their practice in meaningful and sustainable ways. Lastly, as a group, we’ll work together to come up with a list of future-thinking practices, as well as a list of considerations to be shared with a wider, engaged audience.
    DEI
    Design
    Where
    Workshop

  • Here we are again at yet another year and organizations continue to tiptoe around how to really embed diversity, equity, and inclusion into the fabric of an organization. The problem lies in the fact that those that are not affected by systemic issues try to have a 2D or black and white conversation or feel like these topics are events that only have space during Black History or another cultural awareness month. Not this year and not in our future. The time is now to not allow this moment to miss us. Diversity is 3D! Diversity is a teacher. Diversity helps us upskill. Diversity helps us see the bigger picture. Diversity is not this elusive magical creature that we only see once a year. Diversity is a lifestyle that all of us must ascribe to so that we do not find ourselves missing out on opportunities to educate ourselves, to learn about ourselves and others, to equip ourselves for the journey ahead. There’s an African Proverb that says “if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, GO TOGETHER.” We are truly better together. As a former Army Officer and now Professional Development Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with over 20 years of direct leadership development experience I seek to build capacity through the creation of experiential workshops that create sustainable foundations on which to build. It is my goal as a human being, black man, husband, son, brother, lover of people to create levels of actionable awareness that penetrates to where actions are so loud that talking becomes the exception and not the rule.
    DEI
    Where
    Workshop

  • Learn how to design and facilitate workshops that are effective and inclusive towards your team and your clients. Workshops are key to create an inclusive culture, this is why we will cover how to best prepare, run and support inclusive sessions, taking into account different ways people think, process information and communicate. This workshop is both for first-time facilitators and experienced facilitators that want to refresh their inclusive mindset when planning and executing inclusive workshops. You’ll leave with the confidence and skills to run a better workshop independently from the subject you are covering or where your team is working from.
    DEI
    Where
    Workshop

  • What does it mean to decolonize design as non-indigenous folks? As a discipline with an inherent relationship to community and culture, how might design reflect on the historical legacies of colonization as it relates to its unreconciled impacts today? This workshop will focus on providing a foundational overview of what “decolonization” entails from the point of view of non-indigenous designers in the US. We will dismantle common assumptions and mindsets of design practices that are rooted in eurocentric and colonial legacies and understand how design sustains colonizing practices. With this in mind, we will introduce practices of personal commitment, understand designers’ roles and responsibilities in decolonization, and move from performative actions to personal accountability.
    DEI
    Design
    Where
    Workshop