Design Challenge // How might we envision a world where technology strengthens people’s voices and power, and centers human rights and social justice in its design and use?

Partner // Danny Vannucchi

Client // Luminate Strategic Initiatives (LSI) Team @ Luminate

Project // Strategic design & facilitation

Role // Strategic Facilitator & Designer

Impact // As a distributed team, LSI wanted to gather to celebrate accomplishments, reflect on lessons learned, and imagine an ideal way forward in light of Luminate’s evolved strategy, which seeks to support people, organisations, and movements that are challenging Big Tech’s outsized and unchecked power and the misuse of digital technology by governments.

Through a blend of participatory design, systems mapping, and creative facilitation, the design of this gathering created space for connection, alignment and action.

The following outcomes were achieved:

Surfaced key directions of travel for LSI’s work, vis-a-vis 2025 portfolio planning and Luminate’s evolved strategic framework.

Identified key insights and lessons to share with other Luminate teams.

Identified shared values, and ways to strengthen integration and collaboration.

Duration of Engagement // Fall 2024

Design Challenge // How might we catalyze cross-team collaboration to amplify the Foundation's impact in Nigeria?

Partner // GRID Impact

Client // The Gates Foundation, Nigeria Country Office

Project // Strategic design, coaching & facilitation for the Gates Foundation

Role // Senior Strategic Facilitator

Impact // The purpose of this gathering was to identify and leverage opportunities for collaboration between Program Strategy Teams (PSTs) and the Nigeria Country Office (NCO) to amplify the Gates Foundation's impact in Nigeria.

Through a blend of design thinking, participatory methods, creative facilitation and intentional play, the design of this gathering created space for new connection, deepening relationships, building alignment around a shared vision for collaboration and identifying concrete actions and commitments to initiate and strengthen collaboration.

Duration of Engagement // Summer 2024

Acknowledgements //
Design Team: Danny Vannucchi, Alex Fiorillo

Design Challenge // How might we model the change we wish to see in the world - i.e. create congruence between our external impact and internal ways of working (people, processes & technology)?

Partner // GRID Impact

Client // Oxfam International

Project // Strategic design, coaching & facilitation for Oxfam International

Role // Facilitator, Co-Lead

Impact // In early 2024, GRID Impact partnered with Oxfam International to co-design and co-facilitate a week-long confederation-wide gathering that took place in Nairobi, Kenya in the autumn of this year.

The purpose of this gathering is to catalyze operational leadership, confidence, alignment and capacity as strategic enablers for achieving Oxfam’s vision, mission, values and commitments to feminism, anti-racism and decolonization.

Duration of Engagement // Spring - Autumn 2024

Acknowledgements//
Design Team: Molly Alexander, Shin Renn, Karen Vinalay, Alex Fiorillo
Images: Oxfam International

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“Thank you for the way in which you have so deftly led us through both sticky conversations and sprinkled fairy dust in our plenary space. You led, challenged and created spaces for us to play. We are changed for better through your interventions.” - Leela Ramdhani, COO, Oxfam International

Design Challenge // How might we catalyze partnerships and investment to close the gender-digital divide?

Partner // GRID Impact

Client // The Gates Foundation

Project // Strategic design, coaching & facilitation for the Gates Foundation

Role // Senior Strategic Facilitator

Impact // In 2023 I joined GRID Impact, a collective of independent consultants who come together as interdisciplinary teams using design for social change.

Our initial collaboration was focused on designing and co-facilitating a four-day team and partner retreat for the Gates Foundation's Gender Equality, Digital Connectivity team.

The purpose of this gathering was to catalyze cross-foundation partnerships, create space for mutual learning and identify opportunities for co-investment that close the gender-digital divide.

Through a blend of design thinking, participatory methods, creative facilitation and intentional play, this gathering was designed with a capacious agenda that created space for new connection, deepening relationships and thoughtful collaboration.

Duration of Engagement // Fall 2023 - Spring 2024

Acknowledgements //
Design Team: Danny Vannucchi, Alex Fiorillo

Design Challenge // How might we put some fun back in FUNdraising?

Event // Opportunity Collaboration, Miches, Dominican Republic, 2023

Project // Coaching & facilitation

Role // Design Lead, coaching & facilitation

Impact // The Funding Model Jam is game I designed for social-sector organizations to playfully explore and experiment with non-traditional funding models to generate income outside traditional grant-based fundraising / investment.

I did this following a decade+ professional and lived experience doing fundraising with non-profits, start-ups and foundations. The “funders” I worked with were always looking for ways to help their “grantees” find financially sustainable sources of revenue while resource-strapped organizations struggled to find creative ways to diversify their funding sources.

The game:

• attempts to create a funding model lexicon for the social sector - organizations, individuals and movements alike.

• is designed to challenge and inspire organizations to think of creative approaches OUTSIDE of traditional grant-based fundraising & investment.

• is biased towards action - allowing organizations to explore, play and experiment with different ways of creating, delivering and capturing value in a safe space where there’s no failure, only learning and FUN!

Whereas I typically run this Idea Forge for individual clients, I recently ran this workshop for delegates at the Opportunity Collaboration, where I was invited to attend as a fellow. Delegates represented a mix of non profits, grant makers, impact investors, social entrepreneurs, private and public sector representatives and academia.

If you’re interested in having me facilitate a Funding Model Jam for your organization or team, get in touch!

Alternately, if you’d like to explore on your own you can buy the game, click here.

Duration of Engagement // October 2023

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“Our team LOVED this jam. It gave us space that’s generative and allowed us to look at so many possibilities before narrowing them down to models we’re super excited about testing.” - Manon Vergerio, Head of Data & Advocacy, Unlock NYC

“Your session was great. Awesome structure, plan, fun and energy :-) Thank you! I would love more info on the deck and would be interested in purchase!.” - Anne Maloney, Educator & Social Impact Consultant, Scott Center for Social Entrepreneurship

Design Challenge // How might we decolonize our practices?

Project // Decolonizing Design exists to provide a safe space for designers* and change alchemists interested in sharing knowledge and different ways of knowing and being while (un)learning, experimenting with, and co-creating tools and methodologies to decolonize our practices.

* we hold this term loosely and believe everyone is a designer.

Design made colonialism and its continued effects possible. We’re part of a movement working to make it impossible, by design. We exist to decolonize design while designing for decolonization.

To our community, decolonizing design involves reflecting, challenging and transforming design’s role in perpetuating colonialism, systemic and structural oppression in all forms.

🔍 Reflecting: critically examining history, culture and current practices to gain a deeper understanding of design's role in perpetuating colonialism as well as how coloniality shows up in the way we design. Seeking indigenous knowledge and other ways of knowing, being and doing.

🌱 Challenging: questioning the assumptions and biases encoded in our design principles and practices and unlearning harmful narratives. In doing so, we commit to seeking, honoring and amplifying what already exists and works well.

💡 Transforming: continuously working to decolonize the way we work, de-center ourselves and shift power to communities under-served by mainstream systems in service of justice, healing and collective liberation. In doing so we commit to designing thoughtfully and intentionally to meet the needs of the present while considering its impact on future generations, communities, living beings and the planet.

📝 Join our (Slack) community: A hub for connecting, collaborating, knowledge sharing, community building, and learning from each other's experiences. Please complete this form and we’ll send you an invite within 48 hours.

🫱🏽‍🫲🏾 Read our community agreements here.

📚 Visit our resource library here.

👋🏽 We gather on the third Friday of every month. Gatherings range from book clubs, peer learning circles, uncomfortable conversations and decolonizing design labs.

For questions, please contact me.

Design Challenge // How might we build alignment, excitement and action towards our mission?

Client // Unlock NYC

Project // Strategic design, coaching & facilitation for a NYC-based tech collective.

Role // Design Lead, coaching & facilitation

Impact // Unlock NYC is a women-led tech collective building digital tools for fair housing. The collective’s mobile technology makes it easier for New Yorkers with housing vouchers to identify, record, and report unfair treatment during the housing search process – and hold discriminators accountable.

Having grown rapidly from scrappy start-up into a mature organization, Unlock hired me to co-design, facilitate and coach the team through a series of strategy sessions and remote design sprints that would help the collective define a long-term strategy to implement it’s bold mission.

Duration of Engagement // January - July 2023

Acknowledgements //
Image: Unlock NYC

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“You provided an excellent container for us to take a step back from the day-to-day work, think at a high level, and make strategic choices together!...I believe the work was particularly helpful in getting us crystal clear on our north star, our geographic footprint, and our value proposition. Our theme for the 2024 year is "inch deep, mile wide" impact - reflecting that we want to double down on our existing work in New York City, rather than spreading ourselves too thin and trying to scale too fast...All around, thank YOU Kavya! You really expanded our horizons and provided such a nurturing, caring space for our team to dig into juicy, sometimes thorny discussions.” - Manon Vergerio, Head of Data & Advocacy

Design Challenge // How might money flow more freely, nourishing the commons through various tributaries, rather than being stockpiled in reservoirs?

Client // Yoxi

Project // Service design & facilitation for The Current

Role // Service design lead, coaching & facilitation

Impact // The Current is a radical new approach to wealth redistribution, underpinned by technology. It was born out of a speculative inquiry to re-imagine the future of investing**, guided by three questions:

• What if investing efforts could be rooted in principles of mutual stewardship, ease, regeneration, joy and play?

• What if ROI wasn’t a proxy for compounding wealth, but an invitation for value in its many forms to be shared and returned?

• What if money could be both free and freed? Is there a way to stimulate a more equitable flow of money through non-traditional economic incentives?

As service design lead for The Current, my role was part explorer - guiding a collaborative exploration of radical alternatives to investing, and part builder - prototyping new models for wealth redistribution.

After validating proof of concept, this work is currently being led by the team at Art.Coop under the working title MoneyPot.

** The term “investment” is broadly defined to include philanthropy, impact investing, and wealth management activities.

Duration of Engagement // June - December 2022

Acknowledgements //
Design team: Oona Eager, Catherine Woodiwiss, Elisandra Diaz, Anne Leahy, Sharon Chang
Image: USGS

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Image description // How might money flow more freely, nourishing the commons through various tributaries, rather than being stockpiled in reservoirs?

www.gocommonthread.com

Design Challenge // How might we build on what’s strong and invest in community-led, people-first public health approaches that increase demand for COVID-19 vaccines?

Clients // Common Thread, Private Foundation

Project // Strategic design and facilitation for a behavioural design organization seeking to engage diverse stakeholders in co-designing innovative approaches to increase COVID-19 vaccination rates in Pakistan, Kenya, Burkina Faso & Côte d’Ivoire.

Role // Strategic design, coaching & facilitation

Impact // Common Thread is an emerging leader in behavioral design for global public health. The organization unites behavioral science, design thinking and anthropology with local context to design human-centered approaches to public health challenges.

With the launch of a complex, multi-country initiative in early 2022, I was hired to lead the team through a rapid co-design process to help the organization develop tools, frameworks and processes for visualizing and synthesizing emerging findings from the project research and discovery phase.

These resources were developed with a dual purpose of also being external tools for creatively engaging and co-designing with communities and key partners to ensure solutions are people-centered, viable and sustainable.

Examples of some of the tools and frameworks to come out of this engagement included maps to identify key players within each public health ecosystem, stakeholder prioritization frameworks to understand motivations, interests and power dynamics, journey maps to understand social, cultural, structural & behavioral barriers across the vaccine journey, as well as gaps and opportunities for funding and technical support.

Although developed specifically for this initiative, many of these tools and resources are already being used by Common Thread for other projects and engagements.

Duration of Engagement // Spring 2022

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“You really helped us move forward in a short amount of time - really appreciated how quickly you could download our needs and design something pretty close to ready from there... I’m sure we’ll be coming back to your frameworks as the project progresses, so I think you’ve given us good infrastructure as well.” - Sherine Guirguis, Director

www.vanalen.org

Design Challenge // How might we re-imagine the way we work to build equitable cities through inclusive design?

Client // Van Alen Institute

Project // Design sprints, service design & coaching for a NYC-based nonprofit.

Role // Design Lead, coaching & facilitation

Impact // The Van Alen Institute began its institutional evolution when it hired a new Executive Director with a mandate to make the 126-year old organization relevant to the 21st century.

Although the internal transformation had already begun, 2020 accelerated the organization’s transformation. Between a global pandemic, hard conversations about race, inequity and climate change, the organization redefined its mission and purpose to focus on using its privilege to create equitable cities through inclusive design.

I was hired to co-design, facilitate and coach the team through a series of strategy sessions and remote design sprints that would help the organization clearly define its strategy and re-imagine programming in service of this new mission.

Characterized by time-bound activities with guided facilitation and rapid, iterative learning and feedback cycles - these strategy sessions and sprints have allowed the organization to quickly prototype and test new ideas and risky assumptions before bringing viable solutions to life.

The result has also accelerated the organization’s cultural shift from traditional nonprofit to social impact design studio. By strengthening in-house design capabilities, this process has been transformational to helping the team unlock creativity, act with intention and agility, collaborate more effectively, cultivate a learning and growth mindset, and embrace a design ethos that centers the voices and lived experiences of communities served - while moving at the speed of trust.

Duration of Engagement // Spring 2021 - Spring 2024

Acknowledgements //
Design Team: Richard Kelly, Deborah Alden, Stephanie Gamble, Catherine Weislogel, Owen Sanderson

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“The design sprints have been transformational to the way we work together as an organization.” - Carla Swickerath, Board Chair

“You are an exceptionally skilled facilitator. I have been so grateful for your work with us.” - Deborah Marton, Executive Director

www.neighborhoodsnow.nyc

Design Challenge // How might we design a program that responds to the diverse, complex and evolving needs of community partners over the immediate and long term?

Clients // Urban Design Forum & Van Alen Institute

Project // Strategic design, coaching for a nonprofit initiative supporting small businesses and cultural organizations hard-hit by the pandemic in NYC.

Role // Workshop planning, design, facilitation & coaching

Impact // A collaboration between the Urban Design Forum and Van Alen Institute, Neighborhoods Now connected NYC neighborhoods hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic with design firms from each organization’s collective network.

Since May 2020, Neighborhoods Now has provided support to hundreds of restaurants, small businesses, and cultural organizations (community partners) in hard-hit neighborhoods across NYC.

As the landscape shifts from emergency pandemic response to long-term economic recovery, Van Alen and Urban Design Forum sought to understand how they can continue to serve the evolving needs of their core partners across hard-hit neighborhoods.

My role involved planning, co-designing and remotely facilitating a series of workshops that centered the voices of community partners by inviting them to share their knowledge, experiences and intuition as active participants in the program re-design process and beyond.

These workshops have helped Urban Design Forum and Van Alen Institute develop a clear roadmap for the future of Neighborhoods Now - one that is that is grounded in the principles of design justice, equity and inclusive design.

Duration of Engagement // Fall 2021

Acknowledgements //
Image: Urban Design Forum & Van Alen Institute

As the global population and living standards rise, waste volumes are skyrocketing. The environmental impact is significant, and change has been incremental at best.

This is a systemic problem that requires transformation at multiple levels of scale. The task is so monumental, it’s paralyzing - especially when single-use products tyrannize us with their convenience and sustainable alternatives are prohibitively expensive.

Design Challenge // How might we help organizations & businesses go zero-waste?

Client // Global nonprofit

Project // Research, ideation, prototyping and launch of a zero-waste office strategy.

Role // Project Lead

Impact // What started as a project to develop a zero-waste policy for a global nonprofit turned into a behaviorally designed, people-tested, action-oriented checklist to help any organization and its people go zero-waste.

By breaking down big goals into bite-sized nudges, this checklist is 100% effective because it is playful instead of punitive, celebrates the journey instead of the destination, and is co-creative and collaborative, bringing people together to become catalysts for change.

Interested in going zero-waste, but need someone to jump-start the process and get your people on board? Want a copy of the check-list to adapt for your own organization? Get in touch!

Duration of Engagement // 2018 - Present

Acknowledgements //
Image: Moyo

Design Challenge // How might we help people stay healthy, active & connected during the current pandemic?

Project // Research, design, ideation, prototyping and concept development for a volunteer-run community platform.

Role // Founder

Impact // Pandemics and war-zones have a lot in common when you consider the impact to livelihoods and communities.

Having taught fitness classes to aid workers in Afghanistan in my spare time, I understood the importance of finding creative ways to stay healthy, active and connected in environments you can’t control.

I also wanted to support my community of independent fitness professionacommunity membersls, many of whom are facing continued uncertainty.

I researched, designed and launched Fitness to the People in March 2020 as a way to help people stay active and connected at an unpredictable time.

As a volunteer-run platform, Fitness to the People’s mission is to help people stay active from anywhere, while directly supporting independent fitness professionals and causes that matter by hosting virtual fitness fundraiser events.

It quickly became a thriving community that's active in every sense of the word - One event in June 2020 raised nearly $13,000 in individual contributions for social justice causes.

Duration of Engagement // March 2020 - December 2022

www.kophysicaltherapy.com

Design Challenge // How might we re-think physical therapy as a way of life?

Client // Kerry Ojeda, Entrepreneur and Founder of KO Physical Therapy

Project // Branding, copy & web design for a healthcare startup.

Role // Design Lead, Advisory

Impact // As a competitive athlete and board certified Doctor of Physical Therapy that has been practicing for over eight years, Kerry Ojeda sees physical therapy as a way of life - a lifelong practice for the body to optimize performance and prevent injury, no matter how it chooses to move.

Kerry’s business, KO Physical Therapy is a private practice specifically designed for active people and athletes. Her philosophy and expertise are reflected in her practice through a unique approach she designed called Treat - Correct - Perform.

Kerry wanted a website that reflected her unique brand and philosophy. In a space where most physical therapy sites are impossible to navigate, Kerry wanted something that would stand out, while being accessible and user friendly.

The final product, KO Physical Therapy, blends illustration, photography, bold design and typography with the bio-mechanical in a way that celebrates the many ways our bodies can move.

Duration of Engagement // Fall 2020

Acknowledgements //
Photography: Devonta White

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“Working with Kavya was seamless and seriously a pleasure! She delivered on her promise that this process would be fun and non-stressful. Her professionalism, communication and task efficiency was impressive! During my consultation with Kavya, l mentioned wanting a product I would be proud to show off. She nailed it from web design, to artistry and copy-writing for my website. Thank you so much!”

“I get so many compliments on the website - Kudos to you! They report how nice it is, how simple it is to use, and how straightforward the information is. They compare it to other PT sites and immediately get the difference! Success!” - Dr. Kerry Ojeda

Design Challenge // How might we empower businesses to become change agents for tackling complex societal and environmental challenges?

Client // Open to collaborators, prospective funders & partners.

Project // Research, design, prototyping and hi-fidelity concept development for an open-source learning platform.

Role // Project Co-Lead

Impact // The global economy is in crisis. From climate change, to rising inequality, declining growth and productivity, we need to rethink the way we do business.

Sustainability doesn’t have to be a swear word. We see sustainability as inclusive by design. This includes our planet, people & profitability.

The Sustainability Toolbox is an open-source platform for businesses, entrepreneurs and innovators to explore, co-create, share knowledge & practical resources to help build sustainable businesses that do more good, because doing less bad just isn’t good enough.

The Toolbox was designed by myself, and Chloe Rich, a co-owner of a live-events company called ATOMIC and a home decor start-up called SpaceKit.

The platform is currently a hi-fidelity concept, having undergone preliminary rounds of prototyping and testing. Interested in partnering or collaborating? Get in touch!

Acknowledgements //
Images: Unsplash, Moyo

Throughout history, social and cultural aversions to menstruation have influenced society’s relationships to menstruating bodies.

Scientists are still struggling to understand fairly fundamental questions, including why up to 80 per cent of people who menstruate – by some estimates – experience adverse physical symptoms - like cramps, fatigue and anger - just before the onset of menstruation.

In their quest to bring reproductive freedom to menstruating bodies, scientists figured out how to supplant periods, long before trying to understand why they work the way they do. (Scientific American, May 2019)

Embroiled in politics and patriarchy, the field of reproductive health has seen incremental innovation in over a century. There remains a lack of products and services that truly respond to the experiences and needs of menstruating bodies.

Design Challenge // How might we leverage empathy to drive innovation in women’s sexual and reproductive health?

Client // Self-funded. Open to collaborators, prospective funders & partners.

Role // Project Lead

Project // This project seeks to understand whether reproductive health outcomes can be improved by placing more empathy at the center of how we design solutions for menstruating bodies.

Could a more human-centered approach help tackle an issue that has historically put solutions ahead of understanding menstruating bodies in all their complexity?

This is an ongoing passion project that is currently in the ideation/concept development phase.

I am looking for menstruating collaborators with a background in tech, UX, product and service design to help prototype and move this project forward. If you are interested in working together, please get in touch!

Duration of Engagement // 2019 - Present

Acknowledgements //
Images: Unsplash, Lysol

Play // Learning to Weave is a creative project I undertook, teaching myself to weave as a metaphor for leadership. The project took several weeks and culminated in a tapestry made from sustainably sourced materials.

In August 2019, a group of prominent business executives publicly stuck it to Milton Friedman, adding their voices to a growing drumbeat that acknowledged the failure of shareholder primacy as an ideology, and advocating for a new era of shared prosperity: for customers, employees, suppliers, communities and stakeholders.

In a world mired by growing environmental and social concerns, will this herald the era of the purposeful corporation, or is it another instance of corporate ‘greenwashing’?

Considering the complexity of global supply chains alone, many large corporations have benefitted enormously from inequalities within the global economic system that have allowed them to keep costs low by outsourcing operations to countries in the global south, despite known negative impacts.

Take Myanmar, for example. Prior to the coup in 2021, the country attracted a lot of foreign investment on account of its natural resources, young workforce, and rapid urbanization. This period of rapid growth has contributed to a massive waste problem as plastic chokes waterways, crowds landfills, and isn’t going anywhere - China imposed a ban on importing foreign recyclables in 2018 and very few foreign companies have taken steps to mitigate the harmful environmental impact of their operations in the country.

Design Challenge // How might we seek and nurture local approaches that transform Myanmar’s waste and recycling value chain from one that is linear (take-make-waste) to one that is circular (take-make-take-make) and ultimately, more sustainable?

Clients // Private Foundation, Global nonprofit

Project // Research, prototyping, service design & launch for an initiative supporting small businesses in Myanmar’s waste and recycling sector.

Role // Project Lead

Impact // I led a team that was challenged to research, design and launch a pilot initiative that was the first of its kind in Myanmar. Understanding the complexity of the country’s waste problem, we designed a program strategy that ambitiously sought to work with all stakeholders across the waste and recycling value chain instead of narrowly focusing on the private sector alone.

Through events, collaborative workshops, peer mentorship, community outreach and engagement, this project brought local nonprofits, municipal governments, local businesses and communities together, giving them a voice and seat at the table where they had previously been unseen and unheard.

The results have been positive in improving coordination, labour, safety, health standards and work conditions, reducing contamination of recyclable material, improving segregation at source, and ultimately reducing waste.

In 2020, following a successful pilot, the project was extended for an additional three year period.

Duration of Engagement // 2018 - 2020

Acknowledgements //
Project Team: Karen Hsu, Nay Linn Oo, Naing Zaw Myo, Aung Kyaw Zin, Aye Chan Moe, Wah Wah Cho
Images: Digital flyers for a zero-waste event on World Environment Day in June

The Syrian civil war has displaced millions internally, and forced over six million to flee across the country’s border to seek refuge in neighboring countries and Europe. This has left half of Syria’s pre-war population dependent on life-saving assistance.

Alongside this, countries that once welcomed refugees are now facing the reality of protracted displacement in addition to grappling with preexisting challenges such as overburdened infrastructure and social services, income disparity, and labor market distortions. This combination of factors has contributed to a toxic public sentiment that falsely characterizes the presence of refugees as a burden to the countries hosting them.

Our job was re-framing the narrative.

Design Challenge // How might we elevate the positive contributions of refugees to their host countries?

Clients // US Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, Government of Canada, Global nonprofit

Project // Research, prototyping, service design & launch of an initiative supporting refugee-owned small businesses in host countries including Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.

Role // Project Lead

Impact // During a time when most nonprofit organizations were focused on delivering critical humanitarian assistance to refugees and displaced people, I was hired to lead a team that would research, design, and launch an innovative programme that supported refugee, migrant and host-country owned small businesses.

The challenges of designing programmes in conflict-affected countries are numerous, however the single greatest obstacle we faced early on was a matter of public perception:

”Refugees are taking our jobs.”

“Refugees get handouts when unemployment is skyrocketing.”

…The list went on.

We needed buy-in from skeptical local stakeholders to make our work possible. To succeed, we needed to re-frame the narrative.

Thanks to some incredible local partnerships, we already had hard data to show the positive economic contributions of hundreds of refugee-owned businesses - data that didn’t exist before we set out to record it... But we also knew that perceptions are grounded in emotion, and emotions don’t always listen to data.

So we used this data to tell stories. Stories of entrepreneurs who happened to be refugees who were starting businesses, creating jobs for other refugees and their hosts, paying taxes, providing social services and contributing to vibrant local economies…against all odds.

This wasn’t a communications strategy. Storytelling became a critical element of our programme design - Grounded in empathy, it changed the way we spoke about the entrepreneurs we served, and the services we would offer, by reframing what was seen as a problem into an opportunity.

This approach paid off, we were able to get the buy-in we needed, and the programme launched with many successes. Although in many ways tragic as this has become the largest protracted refugee crisis of our time, the programme has since grown into a thriving network of over 2,500 refugee, migrant and host-country owned small businesses.

Duration of Engagement // 2015 - 2018

I lived and worked in Afghanistan for three years between 2012 and 2015. During this time, I led international development programmes for global nonprofits, international organizations and governments.

One initiative involved leading an organization development initiative for Building Markets, a global nonprofit. My mandate was specifically focused on supporting civil society organizations working in human rights and women’s rights.

As a woman, I often found myself greatly outnumbered by men in the workplace. What I found odd was that many of these men represented organizations working on women’s rights issues. I knew from our data that many of these organizations employed women, some of whom were directors and managers. Why weren’t they showing up?

We investigated by seeking out and talking to these ‘invisible’ women, inviting them into the design process as we sought to understand the unique challenges they faced in a country where women’s workforce participation is low.

Design Challenge // How might we tackle social, cultural and access barriers unique to women civil society leaders in Afghanistan?

Clients // Government of Canada, Building Markets

Project // Research, prototyping, service design & launch for an organization development initiative for Afghan civil society organizations working in human rights and women’s rights.

Role // Project Lead

Impact // My team and I researched, tested and redesigned the organization’s approach to service delivery, changing their event space into a pop-up digital content studio used to record on-demand training videos and instructional resources for women to follow along at their own pace, from anywhere. Think Netflix meets Coursera before either became popular!

This remote learning model transformed how the organization interacted and engaged with the people it served. By making its services more accessible and inclusive, the organization was able to reach more women, giving them tools to advocate for themselves and lead in a country where women’s economic participation is low*.

Under my leadership between 2015 and 2020, this model was tested, iterated and successfully adopted across the organization which currently works with vulnerable populations in the Middle East, the Americas and South East Asia. This model became instrumental to continuing service delivery with minimal disruption during the pandemic. Today, Building Markets offers online training as one of its core suite of digital services.

*UPDATE: In August 2021, the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, dealing a blow to human rights and women’s rights gains over the past two decades. In a short amount of time, Afghan women have been subjected to a cascade of announcements restricting their employment, education, travel, deportment and other aspects of public life. Though international governments and rights groups have condemned these actions, the Taliban continue to defy their own pledges to uphold human rights and women’s rights, leaving the future of Afghan women in perilous limbo.

I won’t mince words - The international community (and with it, this project) have failed Afghan women, which is heartbreaking to witness.

Duration of Engagement // 2012 - 2020

Design Challenge // Using panettone as a canvas for exploration, create a food experience that is Made by Italy.

Client // Italia Innovation, Design & Consulting Firm

Project // Research, experience design, and concept development for an Italian design and innovation consultancy.

Role // Project Lead

Impact // Panettone is a leavened Italian sweet bread that is extraordinarily difficult to bake and is traditionally served seasonally at Christmas time. In recent years, panettone has surged in popularity and is now eaten and loved by Italians and non-Italians across the globe who savour its buttery yet light, ethereal texture and flavour.

The story of panettone is closely tied to the mission of Italia Innovation, who seek to open Italy to the world - shifting the focus from where things are made to the reasons why they are made - from Made in Italy to Made by Italy. Over the course of fifteen weeks between January and May 2019, we researched, ideated and prototyped opportunities to make this vision a reality.

The end result were three concept prototypes including a TV show, a food lab and a pop-up food and events space to showcase “Made by Italy” panettone.

Italia Innovation have since partnered with local producers in California to bring the food lab concept to life.

Duration of Engagement // Spring 2019

Acknowledgements //
Illustration: Diane Tate-Whatley
Design: Lucia Sorrenti
Project Team: Chloe Rich, Guillaume Girard, Janet Hoy & Jie Zhen
Images: Unsplash, Italia Innovation