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Upcoming Conferences

Business Innovation Factory
September 15, 2010
Philanthropic and independent organization, founded in 2004, which emphasizes implementation of new ideas, especially in the spheres of healthcare, education and energy. BIF also maintains an Innovation Story Studio with digital material from its creative community.

Picnic Conference
September 22, 2010
Three-day event in the Netherlands connecting media technology, entertainment, art and science. Runs concurrent Picnic Labs, workshops for the development and review of new business ideas.

Opportunity Green
September 22, 2010
"Forge new strategic partnerships and explore the latest in sustainable strategies and best practices to lead your organization to success. Get the inside view on the hottest topics, trends and technologies at the premier green business event focused on creating new opportunities through sustainability."

Idea Festival
September 29, 2010
Brings together creative thinkers in science, the arts, design, business, film, technology and education. Hosts presentation of annual Curry Stone Design Prize ($100,000), given to "an individual who has demonstrated breakthrough design solutions with the power and potential to improve our lives and our world."

A Better World by Design
October 01, 2010
Brings together a global community of innovators to investigate the ways in which technology, design and enterprise can change communities and the environment for the better. Sessions take place on the campuses of neighbors Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design, and students from these institutions run the program.

International Design & Emotions Conference
October 04, 2010
Sponsored by the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and the Design & Emotion Society, this biannual forum is where practitioners, researchers and industry leaders meet and exchange knowledge and insights concerning the cross-disciplinary field of design and emotion. The conference will offer workshops, research paper presentations, design case presentations, and poster presentations.

6th Annual Design, Art & Technology Symposium
October 09, 2010
DATS 2010 explores how food-related designs can help to develop a sustainable culture of healthy lifestyles through good eating. Interdisciplinary teams are creating implements, furnishings and environments to promote thinking and learning about healthy food, in every aspect of our experience. Creative works featured at DATS'10 reflect consideration of nutritious food, sensible diets, appealing tables, creative kitchens, convivial dining spaces, local growing, conscientious farming, fair trade, efficient supply chains, equitable distribution, engaging education and vibrant regional growth. The legacy of Charles & Ray Eames informs appreciation of the power in considering different scales of experience for generating effective art and designs. Powers of 10 Day is part of the DATS'10 program and inspires many of the events and featured projects.

Service Design Conference
October 13, 2010
The Service Design Network, established in 2004 by Köln International School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University, Linköpings Universitet, Politecnico de Milano, Domus Academy and the agency Spirit of Creation. The basic idea is to create an international network for organizations and institutions dealing with service design. This year, the SDN conference, entitled "Connecting the Dots," will take place in Berlin.

AIGA Gain
October 14, 2010
Design has the power to change the direction of businesses, provide fuel for economies and even change lives. Provocative thinkers from a wide range of disciplines will inspire and reinvigorate at this year’s “Gain: AIGA Design and Business” conference, which will focus on the theme “Design (Re)Invents.”

Feast Conference
October 15, 2010
The Feast Conference gathers the world's greatest innovators from across industries and society to empower, inspire and engage each other in creating world-shaking change.

PopTech
October 20, 2010
A three-day summit hosted in a 19th-century opera house in Camden, Maine, that explores technology, new ideas in the social and physical sciences, and other forces of change. Presentations run from lectures to short films to musical performances. Supports fellowship program.

TED Women
December 07, 2010
How are women and girls reshaping the future? The first ever TEDWomen invites men and women to explore this question in depth: From the developing world, where a single micro-loan to a single girl can transform a village; to the West, where generations of educated women are transforming entire industries. The diverse international program takes a long look at women through the lens of change agent, intellectual innovator, idea champion ...

Compostmodern
January 22, 2011
This interdisciplinary conference brings together designers, manufacturers and business leaders to address questions from a design point of view about what makes a socially and ecologically responsible society.

World Economic Forum
January 26, 2011
For more than four decades, the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos has provided leaders from industry, government, academia, civil society and the media with an unrivalled platform to shape the global agenda and catalyse solutions at the start of each year. The diversity and the informal and collaborative “spirit of Davos” mean that, as well as engaging with familiar faces, participants have the chance to connect with people they don’t know, who challenge the way they think and act.

TED Long Beach
February 28, 2011
A gathering place for the country’s leading entrepreneurs and social change agents, TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) runs a conference in Long Beach, California, each February and a summer conference abroad (e.g., Oxford, England). TEDIndia launches in November 2009. The website offers networking opportunities as well as a chance to view videotaped presentations, which have been translated into scores of languages. Also supports a fellowship program.

Include 2011
April 18, 2011
The Helen Hamlyn Centre at the Royal College of Art is pleased to announce the sixth International conference on Inclusive Design.

The theme for Include 2011 will be: The Role of Inclusive Design in Making Social Innovation Happen

As a concept, social innovation has growing currency in society, government, academia and business. It manifests itself in many different ways in different contexts. Its meanings extend from public service and policy innovation to initiatives in assistive technology and to aspects of civic participation and creative entrepreneurship.

In all of these areas, design has a key role to play. It can make policy visible and participation possible.

In particular, inclusive design can deliver innovations of social value to communities and markets.

The Include 2011 international conference at the Royal College of Art seeks papers on all design aspects that catalyse social innovation, in particular:

* Organisation - what design tools, techniques, frameworks and networks support and enhance social innovation?
* Origins - how has social innovation emerged as a design construct and in what ways does it manifest itself?
* Outputs - research studies and design exemplars of social innovation, drawn from public space, health, transport and other key domains.

TED Global
July 11, 2011
What is life? And how can it be better lived? From the secrets of the biological processes that take place in our body, to the cultural constructs that take place in our society; From the technologies and resources that make life possible and enjoyable, to the themes that define our humanity -- or threaten it: TEDGlobal 2011 will be a celebration of life, in all its forms.

All Conferences & Events >>

Academic Programs

The Design High School
Learning to think like a designer gives the students the experience and skills they need for productive decision-making. At the Design High School, a free public charter school in LA, the concepts and practices of design will be used to deliver a rigorous and relevant college preparatory and career oriented curriculum.

Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Program in Social Entrepreneurship
Program at New York University for educating and inspiring a new generation of leaders in public service. A select group of undergraduate and graduate NYU students are chosen annually to learn cross-disciplinary skills for producing sustainable and scalable solutions to demanding social problems.

Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability
Academic course hosted by the Stanford Institute of Design involving graduate students from all seven schools at Stanford University. Multidisciplinary student teams work to create innovations that lie at the intersection of business, technology and human values. The class is project-based, and all projects are done in close partnership with a variety of local and international organizations.

More Academic Programs >>

Competitions

Re:Vision
Initiative to create the prototype for an innovative, sustainable urban community. At the heart of the process is a series of contests generating visionary ideas for what can and should be done in the design of urban space.

INDEX Design Challenge : Design for Education
The INDEX: Design Challenge asks design and business students, as well as cross-disciplinary student teams, to develop design solutions for better education and education environments in developing regions. The challenge centers around three sub-themes: Improved Education Facilities; Sanitation and Hygiene; and Gender Parity in Education. As well, the contest features an open challenge. Participants from all design disciplines are invited to enter the challenge.

More Competitions >>

Fellowships & Prizes

INDEX:awards
The INDEX:Award is the main driver of INDEX:'s mission to generate more Design to Improve Life of higher quality all over the world. The award receives nominations from all over the globe – and from these nominations, the INDEX: international jury selects the best as finalists, and the very best as winners of the biennial award, amounting to a total sum of 500,000 euros. Each of the five winners represents one of the INDEX:Award categories – Body, Home, Work, Play and Community – that together span the spectrum of human activity and are relevant and understandable to people all over the world.

The Do Something Awards
Since 1996, DoSomething.org has honored the nation's best world-changers, ages 25 and under, that are making the world a better place. Nominees and winners represent the pivotal "do-ers" in their field, cause, or issue.

iida - Incheon International Design Award
“iida 2010”, a Korean sustainable design award, seeks fresh and new design proposals to be made by designers with green hearts, being aware of the environment. They welcome active participation of competent world designers to "iida 2010" with the goal of opening possibilities for sustainable life through design. Applicants can enter until August 25, 2010.

More Fellowships & Prizes >>

Organizations

WHY
"Founded in 1975, WHY is a leader in the fight against hunger and poverty in the United States and around the world.... Advances long-term solutions to hunger and poverty by supporting community-based organizations that empower individuals and build self-reliance, i.e., offering job training, education and after-school programs; increasing access to housing and health care; providing microcredit and entrepreneurial opportunities; teaching people to grow their own food; and assisting small farmers. WHY connects these organizations to funders, media and legislators."

Design In Kind
A collaborative network of designers who work with clients in resource-scarce areas to provide access to clean water, education and health care. Current projects include a test for HIV and STDs and a training program for reducing infant mortality in scores of African and Asian villages.

Acumen Fund
The Acumen Fund is a global charitable venture fund that contributes to the eradication of poverty by investing in enterprises that stimulate economies in poor areas. Focus is on supplying market-based critical services, such as health care, energy, housing and water.

More Organizations >>

Programs & Initiatives

DESIS Network
DESIS is a network of schools of design and other schools, institutions, companies and non-profit organizations interested in promoting and supporting design for social innovation and sustainability. It is a light, no-profit organization, conceived as a network of partners collaborating in a peer-to-peer spirit. It is articulated in several DESIS-Local (that are sub-networks within a specified local area). DESIS-International is the framework where the different DESIS-Local coordinate themselves and where some global initiatives are taken.

Charlottesville Design Marathon
The Design Marathon is an annual event held at the Charlottesville Community Design Center (CCDC) involving teams of area designers who each provide 12 hours of pro-bono design services to ten deserving area non-profit organizations. Each creative team includes a student pursuing a design-related degree.

The Foodprint Project
A collaboration between Nicola Twilley and Sarah Rich, The Foodprint Project is a contextual exploration of food. From the cartography of food supply chains to the molecular anatomy of flavor, from the migration of ethnic recipes to the future of urban agronomy, foodprints look beyond the plate to the social, political, artistic and economic forces that shape the way we eat.

More Programs & Initiatives >>

Publications & Websites

Next Billion
"Website and blog bringing together the community of business leaders, social entrepreneurs, NGOs, policy makers and academics who want to explore the connection between development and enterprise....Our goal is to highlight the development and implementation of business strategies that open opportunities and improve the lives of the world's approximately 4 billion low-income producers and consumers."

Global Voices Online
"Community of more than 200 bloggers around the world who work together to bring you translations and reports from blogs and citizen media everywhere, with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media."

Design Activism
This blog represents author Ann Thorpe's “reflections on the role of design as activism” based on her explorations of sustainable design, and in particular on her book The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability.

More Publications & Websites >>

Social Networks

BOP Source
"Social network that closes the digital divide, bringing together the 4 billion people at the base of the economic pyramid (the 'BOP') with the companies and NGOs that want to hire them and design products and services for them."

Open Architecture Network
An online, open-source community founded by Architecture for Humanity. Offers a place where designers can share ideas and projects and host or participate in competitions

Design 21
UNESCO and the Japan-based company Felissimo are behind this network, which connects designers, businesses and nonprofits for the greater good and hosts competitions to create socially minded products and graphics.

More Social Networks >>

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