Interaction Design Education Summit 2016

IBM, one of the world’s largest technology companies, is on a mission to create a sustainable culture of design and to bring a human-centered focus to thousands of product and service experiences. IBM Design Principal Doug Powell directs the company’s design education program which spearheads and catalyzes this change by delivering active learning experiences to designers and non-designers around the world. A key aspect of the program is the three-month design bootcamp that serves as the bridge between the academic and professional experience for more than 600 entry-level designers who have joined IBM in the last 3 years. 

As Doug and his team are building the IBM Design program they are accumulating key insights—and many unanswered questions—about how design can happen in complex organizations. This working session will be an open exchange about design education at scale. 

We will tackle questions like: 
• How do we teach the essential skill of collaboration? 
• How do we prepare designers to be change leaders in the corporate setting? 
• How can design education be used to engage and persuade non-designers (especially senior leaders)? 
• What tools and behaviors can help us foster remote/virtual collaboration for dispersed teams and programs? 
• What are the latest best practices for measuring the impact of design? 

IBM Design has built strong and open relationships with many of the top academic design programs in the world and we look forward to continuing to build that bridge with this important working session.