Associate Professor of Integrated Design, Parsons
Director, DEED: Development through Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, and Design

We have both an opportunity and a responsibility to shift away from design as just the means to a material end, and move toward design as a means to promote positive change. If we don’t, we will fall short of educating a responsible generation that will re-think the world in transformative, yet sustainable ways. The status quo is demonstrably failing, so change needs to happen and it needs to happen now. Sustainable livelihoods will only come about if we privilege community over individuality. How we build those communities, how they are sustained, and who is involved, depends on the goal at hand. What is clear is that there can be no “other” outside of “us.” And there can be no “helping” other than “sustaining.” We are community.