Many of us got into technology and design because we wanted to make the world a little bit better. Design promised to put people first and to envision a better future for the world — if only we could get a seat at the table. Today, design often does have some power in organizations and design-driven companies have created immense shareholder value. Heck, tech companies are some of the wealthiest companies in the world. But, are we making the world better? Is design's purpose to drive business value or human values? Or are they intertwined? Kevin Hawkins and Daniel Burka will discuss the common hurdles and how design leadership can steer organizations towards a vision for a better world.
About
Daniel
Daniel Burka is a designer who focuses on solving complex global health problems in simple ways. He leads the open source Simple.org project at the nonprofit Resolve to Save Lives. Simple is used in thousands of hospitals in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Ethiopia to manage 4.5 million patients with hypertension and diabetes. In 2021, he founded the open source Healthicons.org to provide free icons to healthcare projects around the world. Previously, Daniel co-founded startups like Digg, Pownce, and Tiny Speck (became Slack) and was a design partner at Google Ventures for 5 years. He co-founded the Canadian design agency silverorange, which is now over 24 years old.