Power of Design

The MIT Morningside Academy for Design (MIT MAD) is celebrating its launch with The Power of Design, a day of dynamic presentations by design luminaries and thought leaders. The in-person and online audiences will join for an expansive dialogue about how interdisciplinary design can influence and frame our responses at this time of extraordinary global need.

The forum will reveal the importance of design to a variety of disciplines and enterprises: from the humanities to STEM, from industrial production to community-based solutions. Each of the three sessions will be followed by a conversation moderated by an MIT faculty member, with audience engagement encouraged.

• Session 1: Design Catalyzes Innovation

  Moderator: Maria Yang

  Design practices are key drivers of research and innovation in different fields—from health, to mobility, to sustainability. The first session explores the history, present, and future of design in order to emphasize how design drives advanced research, produces new knowledge, and fosters new modes of coexistence.

• Session 2: Design Transforms Learning

  Moderator: Skylar Tibbits

  Positioning design at the core of education is transforming how we teach and learn at all levels. Our second session brings to light the forms of design pedagogy which are emerging at academic institutions across the world. Design gives students powerful tools to understand, reframe, and address in novel ways our most demanding challenges.

• Session 3: Design Empowers Society

  Moderator: Dava Newman

  The last session focuses on how to make design innovations address societal needs and become accessible to everyone. The contributors explore the forms of business and social entrepreneurship that allow designers to scale up new products and consolidate new types of design practices.

Hosted in the new Exchange Room at the MIT Museum, the event will be free of charge for the MIT community, open to the public, and live streamed at design.mit.edu.