Innovation

Engaging + Reframing the 'Refugee' Crisis Anna Meddaugh is an American designer who developed a personal, reusable urinal designed for women and girls in refugee camps to use at night when it is too dangerous to go to the communal toilets. She named her design “The Night Loo.”

Advocacy
Conflict and Disaster
Healthcare

17 | Mitigating Climate-Based Disaster Before it Strikes

Can design prevent disaster? Mohammed Rezwan of Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha details his designs for floating communities.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment

35 | Big Problems, Simple Solutions

How do we design with scarcity? Ashok Gadgil speaks to us about simple, low cost solutions to global public health.

Advocacy

42-43 | A Green Vision for the Future of Cities Part 1 & 2

Can a city work as an ecosystem? Gail Vittori and Pliny Fisk introduce our hosts to their work, thinking at multiple scales about how to live & work ecologically.

Advocacy
Environment

44 | The Blue Economy of the Future

Can a city work as an ecosystem? Jan Jongert of Superuse Studios shares experiences in designing new forms of ecology within the city.

Community Development
Environment

49 | Designing the Politics of the City

Does design create politics or vice versa? Vera and Ruedi Baur of Civic City discuss how graphic design can be a tool of political change.

Advocacy

52 | A Vision for the Future

How do we democratize design? Dr. Silver of the Centre for Vision in the Developing World shares how his groundbreaking design for self-adjusting glasses can address a serious lack of optometrists in the developing world.

Healthcare

65 | Data, Design and Social Practice

How do we design resistance? Laura Kurgan of the Center for Spatial Research joins us to talk about how data and the design of data systems can be applied to social justice.

Advocacy

90 | Building Coalitions the Right Way

Who Designs the Designers? Building upon an expansive career aiding in the education and support of designers, Jason Schupbach is the Dean of the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University.

Advocacy
Community Development

91 | Designing with Love

Who Designs the Designers? Katie Swenson is a nationally recognized design leader, researcher, writer, and educator. Her work explores how critical design practice can and should promote economic and social equity, environmental sustainability, and healthy communities.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment
Healthcare
Housing

96 | Knowing the Business of Social Design

Who Designs the Designers? Katie Crepeau is a consultant whose work helps social impact designers grow their organizations.

Advocacy
Community Development

Antonio Scarponi

Are you ready to co-opt mass consumerism? Dr. Antonio Scarponi is an architect, designer, educator, and the founder of Conceptual Devices, a Zurich-based office with the mission to develop design strategies with social, economic, and poetic impact.

Environment

Ashok Gadgil

Can low cost, simple designs be implemented at scale? For over twenty years, US engineer Dr. Ashok Gadgil’s work has focused on designing low-cost technologies that help the world’s poorest and most vulnerable.

Advocacy
Environment
Healthcare

Barefoot College

Can the rural poor attain self-sufficiency through design? Barefoot College is an Indian organization that encourages the rural poor to attain self-sufficiency by providing training in education, technology, and work skills.

Community Development
Education

Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems

How is consideration of the full life cycle of products a means to achieve sustainability? The Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems designs systems that identify and utilize the full life cycle of products, buildings and regions, resulting in smarter and more sustainable practices.

Advocacy
Environment

Center for Spatial Research

Can big data be used in the service of social justice? The Center for Spatial Research links design, architecture, urbanism and humanities with data science. Data is used in the service of justice; creating visualizations to understand cities, conflict and inequality.

Education

Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)

2012 Prize Winner

Can design increase civic participation? The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) collaborates with designers, educators, advocates, students, and communities to make educational tools that demystify complex policy and planning issues.

Advocacy
Education

Civic City

Can graphic arts be an agent of political change? The team of Vera & Ruedi Baur / Civic City are widely credited with launching a wave of political activism within the fields of graphic design and its allied professions.

Advocacy
Environment

Design for Extreme Affordability

Can social change be taught? Design for Extreme Affordability is a graduate course offered by Stanford University where students are asked to design products and services which will change the lives of the world’s poorest citizens.

Advocacy
Healthcare

Equalize Health (Formerly D-Rev)

Can high quality, low cost medical equipment be broadly available to the world’s poorest? Equalize Health (formerly D-Rev) is a not-for-profit medical technology company working to prevent people lacking access to treatment from suffering treatable conditions.

Advocacy
Healthcare

Foldit

Can an online puzzle game crowdsource solutions to preventing and curing disease? Foldit is an online game where players contribute to scientific research via an addictive puzzle game. Crowdsourcing is Foldit’s success: the creative problem-solving of thousands of people refines complex computations.

Education
Healthcare

FrontlineSMS

2011 Prize Winner

Can SMS technology be harnessed as a powerful information dissemination tool? Frontline SMS is software that acts as an information dissemination service for text messages. It uses cell service, not internet access, to create communication networks and exchange information.

Advocacy
Community Development
Healthcare

Hunnarshala

2013 Prize Winner

How can artisans build a resilient community? Hunnarshala works with artisans to combine traditional building techniques with innovation. They are also engaged in training and empowering artisan entrepreneurs, bringing them into the mainstream of construction.

Conflict and Disaster
Environment
Housing

Institute of Play

Can video games form the basis of a school curriculum? Founded by game designers in New York City, Institute of Play pioneers new models of learning and engagement rooted in the principles of game design.

Advocacy

Inteligencias Colectivas

What happens when traditional and modern design techniques are blended? Inteligencias Colectivas focuses on the ‘fringe’ of construction practice. Between highly mechanized construction and ancient methods are blended practices with their own wisdom. Inteligencias Colectivas¬ collects, collates and shares these.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Ishinomaki 2.0

How can a disaster be a catalyst for new visions? Ishinomaki 2.0 was founded in the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami that devastated Ishinomaki and the surrounding region, with nearly 46% of the city destroyed.

Advocacy
Urban Strategies

Isla Urbana

Can DIY harvesting of rainwater solve a water crisis? Isla Urbana is a project dedicated to contributing to water sustainability in Mexico through rainwater harvesting.

Advocacy
Environment

Lacaton & Vassal

Is it better to refurbish and reuse than rebuild? Run by the duo it is named for, Lacaton & Vassal is an award-winning architecture firm using innovative design to promote social justice, sustainability, and the repurposing of materials.

Advocacy
Housing

Luyanda Mpahlwa

Can a community be built with sand? Luyanda Mpahlwa is part of a vanguard of designers reshaping and re-envisioning South Africa’s post-apartheid architectural landscape.

Advocacy
Community Development
Housing

Marjetica Potrč

Can participatory design inspire sustainable prosperity? Marjetica Potrč is an artist and architect who works on community-based projects characterized by participatory design and a concern for sustainability.

Community Development
Education
Environment

Maya Pedal

2010 Prize Winner

Can bicycles power essential tasks and support microbusinesses? In rural Guatemala, energy sources are scarce. Maya Pedal repurposes donated bicycles into pedal-powered machines that can blend food, grind corn and lift water from wells, without requiring electricity.

Environment

Means of Exchange (MOE)

CSF Grantee

How can we democratize currency? Means of Exchange is working on the reinvention of exchange currencies using local community currencies, shared resource platforms, crowdfunding and more.

Advocacy
Community Development

Mohammed Rezwan

How can design help flood prone communities to function when facilities and resources are under water? Founded by Mohammed Rezwan, Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha is a nonprofit that works to support the environment and people affected by climate change-induced flooding in Bangladesh by transforming waterways into pathways for education, information, and technology.

Education
Environment
Resilience

Open Source Ecology

What are the fifty machines essential to modern life—and can their designs be open-sourced? Open Source Ecology is dedicated to an open-source economy. At their core are plans for fifty fundamental machines; what is required to create a small, modern civilization.

Environment

Proximity Designs

2013 Prize Winner

CSF Grantee

Can design help raise the income of small hold farmers in Myanmar? Proximity Designs is a not-for-profit social enterprise working to reduce poverty for rural families in Myanmar.

Advocacy
Education
Environment

Public Architecture

How can standard design firms be supported in pro-bono work? San Francisco based Public Architecture formalizes pro bono service within architecture, interiors and landscape design. Their flagship program, The One Percent, supports firms in donating 1% of their time to pro-bono work.

Advocacy

Qigong Sensory Training Institute

CSF Grantee

What is the role of parent education in the healthcare of autistic children? Qigong Sensory Therapy is a revolutionary approach to treating autism developed by integrating Western and Chinese medicine.

Advocacy
Healthcare

Shawn Frayne

Can wind energy be harnessed with a handheld device? Shawn Frayne invented a non-turbine wind-powered generator that could help people in poor communities power lamps, keep small vaccine refrigerators cool and charge cell phones for relatively little cost.

Environment

Slow/d

Can the product-to-consumer supply chain be made more equitable? Slow/d is an Italian organization seeking to disrupt traditional supply chains in design by connecting designers, consumers & artisans directly.

Advocacy
Community Development

Superuse Studios

Can a “blue” economy be created where one business' waste is raw materials for another? Rotterdam based Superuse Studios is at the leading edge of ecological thought. Their work pioneers ideas around an economy where the waste of one business becomes raw materials for another.

Environment

TAMassociati/Emergency

2013 Prize Winner

How can architecture bring dignity in war-torn regions? Studio TAMassociati is a nonprofit architecture firm that specializes in designing healthcare facilities in war-torn areas, highlighting the connection between the built environment and the basic needs of life.

Conflict and Disaster
Healthcare

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