The Programme

Nila Rezaei
Founder
RK Collective

Nila Rezaei is an award-winning Iranian–Australian designer, educator, and co-founder of RK Collective, a Sydney-based design and innovation studio shaping sustainable products, circular systems, and material futures for social and environmental impact.

Her practice sits at the intersection of strategic product design, material innovation, and cultural storytelling, exploring how design can restore relationships between people, place, and planet. She partners with forward-thinking organisations and communities to bring circularity and sustainability goals to life through evidence-based frameworks and world-class product development expertise.

About Creya Learning

Creya Learning is an experiential STEM learning platform founded in 2024 that nurtures children’s natural curiosity through immersive, hands-on experiences. Driven by its core pillars of empowerment, community, and innovation, the organization aims to transform young learners from passive consumers into active creators of the future by introducing them to the latest advancements in technology, art, and science. Originally started as a small local workshop where kids built robots and solved complex puzzles, Creya has quickly scaled to facilitate thousands of educational adventures across multiple tracks, partnering with schools and communities to offer after-school programs, summer camps, school partnerships, and online learning.

Chi-Yi Chang
President
Taiwan Design Research Institute

President of the Taiwan Design Research Institute (TDRI) and former Board Member of the World Design Organization (WDO), Chi-Yi Chang is dedicated to advancing design-driven innovation, reinforcing design’s strategic role in national development, industrial transformation, and social progress.

Established in 2020, TDRI is Taiwan’s first national design research institute, focusing on design policy, public services, industrial innovation, social design, and global collaboration. Through interdisciplinary integration, it enhances governance efficiency and strengthens corporate competitiveness.

Master in Design Studies, Harvard Graduate School of Design; Master of Architecture, The Ohio State University. Former Deputy Magistrate of Taitung County and Professor at the Graduate Institute of Architecture, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, continuously fostering Taiwan’s design innovation and global engagement.

Dr. Jorge Gómez Abrams
Director
Winn Innovation

Dr. Jorge Gómez Abrams is Director of Winn Innovation and a WDO Regional Advisor for Mexico. An industrial designer, researcher and educator, he has dedicated his career to advancing design-driven innovation and strengthening the role of design in public policy and sustainable development. Through his work with governments, academia and industry, he promotes collaborative and systems-based approaches to addressing complex societal challenges.

Eisuke Tachikawa
Founder
NOSIGNER

Eisuke Tachikawa, WDO Board Member and founder NOSIGNER, focuses on creating a hopeful future.His projects tackle social issues like climate change, renewable energy, disaster prevention, and community revitalization. He advocates ‘Evolutional Creativity’, which tells the essence of creativity from the natural phenomenon of biological evolution, earning him the Shichihei Yamamoto Prize. A prolific designer, Tachikawa has won 100+ awards globally, and became the youngest President of Japan Industrial Design Association in 2021.

Dr. Pamela Cajilig
Professional Lecturer
UP Diliman College of Architecture

Pamela Gloria Cajilig, PhD is an applied anthropologist, design researcher, and educator with extensive experience in organizing and participating in international research, art, and design residencies, fellowships, and conferences across Asia, Europe, Australia and the United States—including programs with Brown University, Ars Electronica, World Wildlife Fund USA Environment and Disaster Management, RMIT University, the Southeast Asia Neighborhoods Network, UN University Tokyo, and the British Counci—focused on design for disaster resilience, climate justice, sustainability and participatory practice. Cajilig is a sought-after keynote speaker, moderator, and panelist at major global forums such as the PHInternational Design Conference, UN-led disaster risk reduction conferences, and academic institutions worldwide, bringing deep expertise in facilitation, interdisciplinary dialogue, and community-centered design.​

Nalin Gagrani
Managing Director & CEO
Blue Pebble Limited

Nalin Gagrani is one of India’s leading environmental branding and workplace experience companies. A first-generation entrepreneur with over two decades of industry experience, he has transformed Blue Pebble from a graphics solutions business into a publicly listed, integrated design and implementation firm serving global brands such as Infosys, Google, Bank of America, Visa, Accenture, and BMW.

Amod Gijare
Principal Lead, Industrial Design
Forbes Marshall

Amod Gijare is a design leader and product strategist with over a decade of experience shaping industrial innovations at the intersection of engineering, design, and human-centered problem-solving. He currently serves as Principal Lead – Industrial Design (R&D) at Forbes Marshall Pvt. Ltd., where he heads the in-house design function and drives the organization’s design vision for products, experiences, and future-ready capabilities.

Rahul Mantri
Managing Director
Accenture Song India

Rahul is a design and transformation executive with over two decades of experience helping global organizations reimagine how they create value through experience. Operating at the intersection of design, technology, and business, he leads large-scale transformations that combine customer-centric design, modern digital platforms, and AI-powered intelligence. His focus is on advancing the future of experience moving organizations from static journeys to adaptive systems that continuously learn, evolve, and create meaningful impact for customers and businesses alike.

Dr. Gopal Meena
Vice President of Strategy Initiatives
Chitkara Design School, Chitkara University

Prof. Dr. Gopal Meena, an NID graduate, is a skilled multidisciplinary designer, strategist, and educator with extensive experience in academic and industry settings, both nationally and internationally. His innovative teaching approaches foster students’ aspirations and creativity. He encourages academic and personal excellence through unconventional design strategies.

Ananya Mukherjee
Vice-Chancellor
Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi NCR.

Professor Mukherjee obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, USA, and her BA and MA degrees in Economics from Jadavpur University, India. Before joining Shiv Nadar University, Professor Mukherjee was Provost and Vice-President Academic, University of British Columbia (UBC) Okanagan — a fast-growing campus of a university which ranks amongst the top 40 in the world. She also led UBC’s strategy for antiracism and inclusive higher education, and has been involved in several national initiatives for higher education in Canada. Between 2015 and 2018, Professor Mukherjee was Dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies at York University, Toronto. In this capacity, she led the largest liberal arts faculty in Canada with 23,000 students from 123 countries.

Saurabh Singh
Sr Vice President Design & Modeling
Maruti Suzuki India Limited

Saurabh is a seasoned automotive design leader and an IISc Bangalore alumnus (M.Des, 1999) who has spent his career shaping the landscape of Indian mobility. At India’s leading automobile company – Maruti Suzuki, he has driven the strategic design evolution of some of the country’s most recognizable vehicles, from the Alto and Brezza to newer hits like the Fronx, Dzire and Victoris.

Dr. Rebecca Price
Senior Lecturer of Industrial Design
The University of New South Wales (UNSW)

Dr. Rebecca Price is Senior Lecturer at University of New South Wales, Sydney/Warrane (Australia). Through action research, award-winning teaching, funded initiatives, publications, and industry collaboration, Dr. Price advances human-centred approaches that support resilient designers to imagine and realise sustainable futures.

Amaia Celaya Alvarez
Senior Urban Migration Specialist
UNOPS

Amaia Celaya Alvarez is a resilience expert with 25 years of experience at the nexus of development and humanitarian action across Europe, South America, East and West Africa, and the Middle East. She currently supports UNOPS with the SUIDAC (Sustainable Integration of Displaced Communities in Sub-Saharan Africa) project and the European Commission in the Horizon Europe (Resilience and Innovation), European Urban Initiative (Knowledge transfer among cities), and URBACT (climate, health and participation) programmes. She leads the “resilience-in-design” executive programme at ELISAVA (School of Design and Engineering) in Barcelona.

Roberto Inderbitzin
Founder
Reframe Design

Roberto Inderbitzin is a Swiss-Mexican industrial designer and founder of REFRAME, the design and strategy studio in Zürich, working under the philosophy of Judgment and Subtraction. Trained as a polymechanic and holding a Master of Design from the ZHdK, he hosts the podcast Conversations with Roberto, with guests including Don Norman, Chris Bangle, and Jean-Claude Biver.

Rachel Bronstein
Programme Lead for Skills
Design Council

Rachel Bronstein is the Programme Lead for Skills at the Design Council, which currently involves managing our Skills for Planet movement, an initiative that aims to upskill 1 million designers with critical green skills by 2030. Having worked across the private, public and third sector, Rachel brings her multidisciplinary background to programmes at the Design Council. As a consultant, she was fortunate to experience a lot of breadth in her role. Projects varied from working with the Department for International Trade to design a service to help exporters export goods post-Brexit, to re-defining the British Business Bank’s Employee Value Experience and transforming AVON’s customer experience.

Norma Iglesias-Prieto
Co-Founder
El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF)

Norma Iglesias-Prieto is a transborder scholar with over 40 years of experience in cultural studies. A founder of COLEF and professor at SDSU, she developed the concept of borderism to explore diverse border experiences. Her research focuses on creativity as a form of resistance and on visual arts as a means to reconstruct the social fabric. She has authored five books and curated major cross-border exhibitions, including Point of Entry (2016) and Chicano/a/x Printmaking (2020). Combining theory, media production, and activism, her work highlights marginalized narratives and the complex dynamics of the Tijuana–San Diego border.

Arturo Elenes
Co-Founder
Enigma Creative

Arturo Elenes is a graphic designer and co-founder of Enigma Creative and Tijuana Design Week. He is an advisor to the Don Norman Design Awards, AIGA San Diego–Tijuana, and World Design Capital 2024. His work focuses on creative strategies that express brand essence and promote design culture in the Tijuana–San Diego region. By connecting creative realities on both sides of the border, he fosters international opportunities for local talent. Arturo sees design as a bridge for cultural dialogue and community growth within a globally connected, binational context.

Alita Escobedo
Light and Space Designer
El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF)

Alita Escobedo is a lighting and stage designer from Tijuana. Since 2011, her work has been showcased at venues like Mexico’s National Auditorium, Tel Aviv Opera House, and Havana’s Gran Teatro. She won first place in Japan’s The Perfect Light contest (2018) and received Mexico’s FONCA grant (2022–2023). Selected for the International Mentorship Program by Scenography Today, she authored Women in Entertainment Lighting in collaboration with Light Collective. Her work blends scenic technology and gender perspective, positioning her as a rising figure in the international lighting design community.