NCIIA Conference- Investing in Change

I just attended NCIIA's 13th Annual Meeting that seeks to "advance education, invest in change," with a focus on Social Entrepreneurship held in Washington  DC from March 19-21.

The conference was primarily tech and engineering centered, but I was proud to be there inserting little seeds, reminding people that designers are a part of this movement as well. I saw presentations on a couple of other great courses including Leslie Speer's course that she used to teach at CCA/UC Berkeley and now brings to San Jose State. 

I noticed the type of presentations primarily given. And when I say "type," I mean literally "type." Most of the presentations were head to toe covered in words. I asked myself, "Where's the story!? Where are the people!?" This is certainly something designers can bring to the table in focusing on people and telling the story. 

I met some fantastic people including Paul Hudnut whose helping to lead the Design Revolution 100 with Paul Polak, Leslie Speer, Jill Bamburg, co-founder and dean of Brainbridge Graduate Inst, James Barlow CEO of Scottish Institute for Enterprise, a couple of fellow young female social entrepreneurs from CSU and finally got to catch up in person with my buddy Francisco Noguera from WRI, and editor of Nextbillion.net! I felt these people really spoke my language and it was great to connect!

Fun fun!