Talk

MFA Interaction Design presents an informative and engaging panel discussion on the current state of artificial intelligence, co-hosted by DesignIt and moderated by faculty member Pinar Guvenc.

DesignIt is an international company situated at the intersection of strategy, design, marketing and technology. For more than 30 years, they have helped businesses build competitive advantage and deliver positive change through creative pragmatism. Through diverse lenses, humane technology and purposeful risk, DesignIt is driven by the belief that what matters tomorrow is designed today.

• Toby Whelan, residency lead and UX designer. Toby is an interaction designer from London, based in Oslo. He designs with a playful curiosity into the intersection of emerging technologies and society. Toby likes to create things with social purpose. He also produces music, experimenting with technology to make music in new ways.
• Eric Messinger, senior business designer. Eric is an New York City native and strategic design practitioner with a specialization in business viability. As an MBA, he infuses business fundamentals with human-centric design thinking principles to deliver profitable and sustainable digital product and service design recommendations to clients. He has worked in both consulting roles and strategic sales.
• Alejandra Risvang, UX designer. Alejandra is a UX designer from Santiago de Chile, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. She started her career in graphic design and motion design in Chile. She explored the use of emerging technologies such as AR and AI in Denmark, from there she started to focus on UX. She’s interested on designing alongside the latest technology when it’s at the service of real-life problems and can make people’s life genuinely easier.
• Connor Forsyth, service designer (SYD). Connor is a Service Designer based in Sydney, Australia, with a background in architecture, social impact, startups and consulting. He thrives when experimenting with different mediums of craft and loves playing with code. Connor is also an instructor at the University of Sydney Design Lab.

Pinar Guvenc teaches Inclusive Design in the SVA MFA Interaction Design department. She is Partner at SOUR – an international, award-winning hybrid design studio with the mission to address social and urban problems – where she leads business and design strategy. Guvenc is part-time faculty at Parsons School of Design, MS in Strategic Design and Management program, as well as author and facilitator of the workshop series “Strategic Marketing Collaborations” at Pratt Center for Community Development. Pinar is a frequent public speaker and host of the podcast What’s Wrong With, a series of discussions with progress makers and experts to diagnose problems in industries, ideate solutions and raise awareness to general public.