Sean Donahue is internationally recognised for his socially-driven design and design research. He is the Co-founder and Core Faculty of Art Center College of Design’s ground breaking Graduate Media Design Practices+Field program, and Principal of RCD/LA, his award-winning California-based design practice. Sean’s works focus on 21st century global challenges in local contexts, engaging marginalised communities through design in some of the most exciting and complicated parts of the world. From East Africa to East Los Angeles, Sean leads efforts to impact on the realities of peoples’ lives in positive ways through ground-breaking design. Sean’s works have been included in the Cooper Hewitt National Design Triennial, the California Design Biennial, the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institute and recently in Design as Future-Making published by Bloomsbury Press.
Working at the intersection of technology, business and design, Ryan’s creative leadership focuses on helping clients and design teams to see business as a creative medium to achieve positive impact for users and inspiring them with the latest possibilities in business and technology.
An engineer by training and a business designer by practice, Ryan has applied his problem-solving tools and design thinking mindset across industries like Finance, Energy, Consumer Goods & Services and Healthcare. From the largest Fortune 500 organisations to nascent start-ups, Ryan has led and guided teams around the world on how to be more human-centered, creatively explore and solve problems, and quickly prototype ideas for users to vote with their wallets.
Tim Stock is the Co-founder of scenarioDNA, a consultancy that leverages the union of consumer anthropology and data science to advise global clients on cultural trends with a systems-thinking approach to innovation. He is the co-inventor of a patented methodology of Culture Mapping that analyses patterns in culture using computational linguistics and machine learning to visualise trend narratives and forecasts. Clients include Campbell’s, IKEA, Nike, Hilton Worldwide and Honda. Tim is a frequent speaker on culture and innovation and has appeared in various publications such as The New York Times, The Financial Times, Advertising Age and Quartz.
James Corner is the CEO of James Corner Field Operations, a leading-edge urban design studio based in New York City, San Francisco, London and Shenzhen. He has devoted the past 30 years to advancing the field of urbanism, primarily through his leadership on high-visibility, complex urban projects at Field Operations, as well as through teaching, public speaking and writing. Important public realm design projects include New York’s highly-acclaimed High Line; London’s South Park at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park; Santa Monica’s Tongva Park; Chicago’s Navy Pier; Cleveland’s Public Square; Philadelphia’s Race Street Pier; Hong Kong’s Salisbury Gardens and Tsim Tsa Tsui Waterfront; and Shenzhen’s new city of Qianhai.
He is currently leading the design for San Francisco’s Presidio New Parklands, a 14-acre park connecting the Presidio to the Bay. James’s works have been recognised with the National Design Award; the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Architecture; The Daimler-Chrysler Design Excellence Award; and the D&AD Black Pencil Award. His works have been published broadly and exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art; the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum; the National Building Museum; the Royal Academy of Art in London; and the Venice Biennale. His books include The High Line (Phaidon, 2015); The Landscape Imagination (Princeton, 2014), and Taking Measures Across the American Landscape (Yale, 1996).
