Helelyn is a social anthropologist with the privilege of exploring the most exotic tribe in the world – the Deep State. As a project lead in the Estonian Public Sector Innovation Team, she keeps evangelising human-centred approaches. This involves convincing civil servants that ordinary people are indeed an invaluable source of information and dragging them out to do fieldwork in the nightclubs, sleeping on bunk beds in the army barracks. She has grown used to eye-rolling and enjoys engaging in mild forms of mischief disguised as policy experimentation. At the summit, Helelyn will share the experience of the Innovation Team developing creative solutions to public policy problems through design-led experiments.
J. Paul Neeley is an American Designer & Researcher based in London. He consults with organisations in Speculative Design at Neeley Worldwide, and he teaches these approaches at the School of Critical Design. J. Paul has worked across a variety of industries and explored topics from AI, VR, and synthetic biology, to wellness, healthcare delivery, civility, future mobility, and climate change. He is a tutor at the Royal College of Art, lecturing in Service Design, Systems, & Speculative Design. J. Paul holds an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art with Distinction, where he studied with Tony Dunne & Fiona Raby. In his talk, J. Paul discusses the New Kind of Design, outlining new approaches to design practice with new frames and methods to address the complexity and computational irreducibility in design and business. On October 21, J. Paul will also run a Speculative Design Introduction workshop.
Jane is a Design Thinking Coach at Design Minds. As the initiator, curator and moderator of Design Thinking Tallinn, she believes in human-centred design. Applying design mindset and tools makes our everyday work more meaningful because we know what kind of value and to whom we are creating, and also more efficient, because it helps us focus on the essential things. She gained this belief during her six years of being the CEO of the Estonian Design Centre, where she facilitated service design and design thinking training, masterclasses and innovation programs for various businesses and the public sector.
Josina is an Associate Professor in Service Design at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) and Design Lead within the Centre for Connected Care (C3) in Norway. Josina has over ten years of experience as a service and system designer working in international healthcare contexts, including Canada, the United States and Sweden. In their practice, Josina has developed new services, supported the policy change, facilitated shifts in practises across sectors, and led social lab processes. At the summit Josina will talk of working with social structures as design materials and walk participants through a systemic design approach for catalysing social system transformation. In addition, Josina will have a 45 min hands-on practical session, where participants will learn how to become more aware of invisible social structures – such as norms, rules, roles and beliefs – and intentionally shape them within a design process.
Kersti Kaljulaid served as the President of the Republic of
Estonia from 2016-2021. During her time in office, she
made her presence felt in both her homeland and the
international arena.
Previously she had been serving as a Member of the European Court of Auditors, advising
Prime Minister Mart Laar and holding diferent top level positions in energy, investment
banking and telecom sector. Genetic engineer and economist by education, she has been a
member of the Supervisory Board of the Estonian Genome Center and the Council Chair of
the University of Tartu from 2012 to 2016.
In summer 2021, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed President Kaljulaid to the
position of Global Advocate for the ‘Every Woman Every Child’ strategy on the health and
well-being of women, children and adolescents around the world for the next two years. She
was also the first Estonian to be featured in the Forbes World's 100 Most Powerful Women.
Kersti Kaljulaid has become a sought-after speaker at high-level forums on digital, security and
foreign-policy topics and more broadly for analysing and interpreting societal and economic
change.
President Kaljulaid is a vocal advocate of human rights, rule of law, freedom of speech and
democracy. One of the principles in the in office of president has been the one she set out
upon her inauguration: “I am never silent when our security is in question, when our freedoms
are at stake or when those weaker than us are treated unjustly.
Kristi is the co-founder and partner of Miltton New Nordics. She has 25 years of experience in the consulting industry, including founding Miltton JLP in 2005. Kristi is most compelled by developing people, consulting organisations on change management and change communications, as well as driving important initiatives within the society. Her most extensive experience comes from the banking sector. She has worked at Hoiupank, Hansapank, and Swedbank Stockholm HQ. In addition, she has managed communications at Eesti Energia and used to be the Head of Communications at the Government Office of Estonia. Kristi is also a qualified communications trainer and has led various organisational design, service design, and customer experience development projects.
Magnus Sølvhøj Kühn, Project Director at Lendager, is a trained constructing architect and has a Bachelor of Architecture from Aarhus School of Architecture. With more than 15 years of experience as both a building designer and architect from various architectural companies and as a self-employed architect, Magnus has built up a solid knowledge of sustainable construction and design in all building phases, focusing on wood construction and innovation projects. Magnus is also teaching at the Royal Academy and doing courses for the Danish architects' association. At the conference Magnus opens up the design journey of Made in Aarhus housing project which combines diversity, affordability and sustainability to create a living space that contributes to a better quality of life for everyone.
Marko Uibu, PhD, is a co-founder of the Estonian Social Innovation Lab and a lecturer of communication management at the Institute of Social Studies (University of Tartu). His current academic interests are related to diverse aspects of social change and innovation: from religious and health perspectives to the potential of (co-)creational methods. Marko has an interdisciplinary background: Master’s degrees in media and communication studies and social anthropology and a PhD in religious studies. Being a ‘pracademic’, he is conducting both academic and applied research and participating in several social innovation programs like a co-creative social intervention to increase children’s physical activity. Marko is presenting the co-creation model in the Design Thinking Tools session.
Markus is founder and partner at einszueins architektur. He completed his studies in architecture at the TU Wien and the ETSA Seville. 2006-2015 he taught design for prospective builders at Nimmerrichter courses and took the builder examination in 2009 and the civil engineering examination in 2016. In addition to 12 years of experience in the planning and execution of residential construction projects of various scales, he has advanced training in the field of mediation and community building. Markus Zilker is a founding member of both the „Initiative für gemeinschaftliches Bauen und Wohnen“ and the „Wohnprojekt Wien“ co-housing project, which was awarded the Staatspreis für Architektur und Nachhaltigkeit in 2014, amongst others. Markus Zilker also has many years of experience in dealing with small and large group processes, from process design and communication to the moderation of workshops and working groups. As an expert on the subject of „Baugruppen“ (co-housing) and participation in planning, he will present at the summit the case of Gleis-21 co-housing project.
Pärt works as a service designer at Nortal. His journey is pretty common in that discipline - starting from graphic designer, then turning into UI/UX, and for the last year, he has been on the knotty path of service design. His role is to connect the dots between different stakeholders in - mostly public sector - projects. Pärt loves the process of bringing clarity to complex problems. To do so, he combines his visual expression skills with theoretical knowledge gathered from MA studies in culture theory and semiotics. He believes it is all about the effectiveness of project communication when struggling with wicked problems. The light at the end of the tunnel comes from Figma-sketching yourself in workshop mode right through the myriad of we-don't-know-abouts. In his presentation, Pärt will speak about using empathy for improving project communication. The case used as an example is from one of the state initiated life-event based services projects
Pärtel is a senior adviser at Miltton's Urban Affairs team. For nearly a decade, Pärtel has worked on making cities more innovative, attractive and sustainable for talent and investors. He specialises in smart city development, change management, conceptual design, branding and strategic consultancy. He has provided strategic recommendations to senior managers as well as created and led projects as a concept designer, project manager and expert. He has worked with Nordic municipalities and different clients from Switzerland, Netherlands, Europe, the Middle East, Canada and Singapore. Pärtel co-founded and held multiple positions in Future Place Leadership, a Stockholm-based consultancy specialisingfcen in the development, innovation and marketing of places. He has also worked as Head of Urban Strategy at Fyma, an urban AI data analytics company. Pärtel is one of the moderators of Design Thinking Tallinn 2022.
Rait has been leading the Helmes Strategic Design team through various local and international projects in the recent years. Promoting design thinking and providing constant communication throughout the process has proven successful for both the users, the clients and Helmes as well. Rait will be leading the final discussion round at the summit.
Sarah is a Founder of InWithForward, and its Social Impact Lead. As a sociologist, Sarah is fascinated by what makes individuals, families, and policymakers tick. She’s worked with federal, regional, and local governments in 6 countries to shift how policies are made and measured. Her experience working within bureaucracies sparked her interest in redesigning them. From 2010 to 2012, Sarah co-ran InWithFor and worked with The Australian Centre for Social Innovation to launch three new social solutions, including the award-winning Family by Family. Sarah has also been the Youth Project Lead at Participle, one of the first social design shops in the world. She holds a Doctorate in Social Policy from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar and a Masters of Education from Stanford University. At the summit, Sarah will share her experience designing impactful social solutions and helds a workshop Co-designing in communities with people for change.
Tomomi is a designer and partner at the independent design studio AQ, bringing product strategy, design research and facilitation skills to customer and employee experience challenges. Tomomi is interested in how we design the conditions for independent-minded individuals to grow and thrive together. She is a frequent organiser, speaker and contributor to design and research communities of practice, and works on capacity-building and instrumentation for new ways of organising with the collective Greaterthan. Based in Paris/Tokyo. Tomomi will have a keynote to start off the final panel discussion session. the Say hi on Twitter @tomomiq.
Tõnis is the Head of the Department of Urban Design and City Architect of Tartu, Estonia. He obtained his Master's degree in Architecture and Urban Planning from the Estonian Academy of Arts. Tõnis has been the City Architect for the last ten years and has been active in public space and sustainability dialogues. Tartu has been granted several annual national architecture awards and other successfully managed proposals, gaining much attention in Estonia. Tartu city is most concerned with whether today's trends are a suitable environment for a truly sustainable urban future regarding the issues of ecology, built environment and mobility. While concentrating on the issue of urban mobility, there is a slippery slope of neglecting the true goal of a city – bringing people together for the best possible cooperation for building a cohesive society. In a world of fewer resources and dramatic changes in climate, a compact, citizen-friendly city concept goes hand in hand with building resilience in our societies. Tõnis will base his assumptions on historical examples and bring out a success story from the best pactices of the City of Tartu.