Speakers
Please stay tuned for a full list of speakers featured at the conference. For now, please consult the conference program for a first overview.
Flor Avelino
Flor Avelino is a full professor of Organizations & Sustainability at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University. She has worked as a researcher and lecturer in sustainability transitions and transformative social innovation since 2005.
With a background in political science, she specializes in power theories and has a particular interest in understanding how people, organizations, and networks are (dis)empowered to contribute to change, as well as how power relations are challenged and reproduced through translocal processes of social innovation and sustainability transitions.
Jesko Fezer
Jesko Fezer is an architect, designer, author, and professor of Experimental Design at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts (HFBK). His work engages with the socio-political dimensions of design, focusing on participatory and community-based approaches.
He is the co-founder of Pro qm, a Berlin bookstore specializing in urbanism, politics, and design, and a member of the exhibition design collective Kooperative für Darstellungspolitik. In collaboration with ifau (Institute for Applied Urbanism), he has realized architectural projects in cities across Europe and the U.S.
At HFBK, he leads the Studio Experimentelles Design, which operates the Öffentliche Gestaltungsberatung St. Pauli (Public Design Support), offering free design assistance to local communities.
Jesko Fezer
Jesko Fezer is an architect, designer, author, and professor of Experimental Design at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts (HFBK). His work engages with the socio-political dimensions of design, focusing on participatory and community-based approaches.
He is the co-founder of Pro qm, a Berlin bookstore specializing in urbanism, politics, and design, and a member of the exhibition design collective Kooperative für Darstellungspolitik. In collaboration with ifau (Institute for Applied Urbanism), he has realized architectural projects in cities across Europe and the U.S.
At HFBK, he leads the Studio Experimentelles Design, which operates the Öffentliche Gestaltungsberatung St. Pauli (Public Design Support), offering free design assistance to local communities.
Vera Sacchetti
Vera Sacchetti is a Basel-based design critic, curator, and educator. She lectures in Design Theory at HSLU Design Film Kunst and tutors at Design Academy Eindhoven.
Her recent curatorial work includes “Earthrise 25: Where to, from Here?” at Turin’s Circolo del Design (2025) and “Right here, right now: Bioregional ways and situated practices” at the Covilhã Design Triennial (2025). She co-founded Fazer, a design magazine in Portugal (2023), co-initiated the Design and Democracy platform (2020), and coordinated “Driving the Human: Seven Prototypes for Eco-social Renewal” (2020–2023). Sacchetti is a member of Switzerland’s Federal Design Commission.
Chris Kasabach
Chris Kasabach is the Executive Director at Watson, an international foundation that partners with education institutions, international peers and remarkable students to expand the vision and develop the potential of our next-generation leaders. With a background in design, education and strategic innovation, his focus is on supporting emerging adults as they cross the chasm between their latent and realized abilities.
Chris is a founding trustee of Winterhouse Institute that helped structure Social Design as a community of practice in the United States. Winterhouse built Pathways, a design leadership model that has been widely published and is used in social, business, policy and learning contexts to address challenges of any scale, from neighborhoods to new enterprises.
Chris Kasabach
Chris Kasabach is the Executive Director at Watson, an international foundation that partners with education institutions, international peers and remarkable students to expand the vision and develop the potential of our next-generation leaders. With a background in design, education and strategic innovation, his focus is on supporting emerging adults as they cross the chasm between their latent and realized abilities.
Chris is a founding trustee of Winterhouse Institute that helped structure Social Design as a community of practice in the United States. Winterhouse built Pathways, a design leadership model that has been widely published and is used in social, business, policy and learning contexts to address challenges of any scale, from neighborhoods to new enterprises.
Shilpa Das
Shilpa Das is a professor at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, where she leads Interdisciplinary Design Studies, the Liberal Arts Programme, and the Masters in Design, Film, and Video. She established NID’s PhD Programme and previously served as Dean (Education) across its three campuses, as well as Chair of International Programmes and Head of Publications. Her teaching and research focus on disability studies, inclusive and universal design, and the socio-cultural history of design.
Her work bridges scholarship and public engagement: she has authored more than 50 publications and co-edited Narrative Universes of Disability (Springer, 2025). She advises on global health and inclusive design initiatives—including with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and McKinsey’s Design for Good—and serves on boards and juries internationally; she is currently a board member of the Social Design Network.
Hosts
Supporters
Partners
Hosts
Supporters
Partners