Design Lab with Bon Ku

Latest Episodes:

Ep 29: Designing Transparency in Healthcare | Liz Salmi Apr 15, 2021

Show notes

Liz Salmi is Senior Strategist of Dissemination for OpenNotes at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In this role, Liz helps hospitals and health systems understand the changing nature of patient-clinician communication in the digital age, and interpret and implement research emerging from the “open notes” movement. After being diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor at age 29, Liz immediately put her digital communications skills to use by blogging, chronicling her daily symptoms, and seeing how much she could learn from her online patient portal. Today, her research areas of interest include studying how healthcare professionals and patients are connecting through digital tools and joining as partners in research. Liz leads the Brain Cancer Quality of Life Collaborative, a multi-stakeholder group dedicated to advancing science and improving the quality of life for people with malignant brain tumors. Liz was named e-Patient of the Year by the Society for Participatory Medicine.

EP 28: Creating Future Designers in Africa | Guidione Machava Apr 08, 2021

Show notes

Guidione Machava is an entrepreneur, designer and community builder. He has experience leading teams, coaching designers, and creating together products and services that positively impact people’s lives. He works across diverse industries and sectors, bringing early ideas and concepts to life for World Bank projects, scrappy startups and nonprofits in Africa. He is the author of “Design Sutra'', a collection of design principles for designers in the early stages of their careers and founded the World-class Designer School, the home of brightest design minds in Africa. He recently organized the World-class Designer Conference which included speakers such as Debbie Millman, Marty Cagan and designers from the largest companies in the world. In 2018, Google named him one of the best community builders in Africa. Bon and Guidione talk about creating the future of design in Africa, organizing a global design conference and life in Mozambique.

EP 27: Designing Patient Health Stories | Katie McCurdy Apr 01, 2021

Show notes

Katie McCurdy is a design consultant, autoimmune patient and founder of Pictal Health. After years of struggling to communicate about her own mysterious symptoms, Katie created a new way for people to tell their health stories visually, so they feel heard and understood as they work with their doctors to get the right diagnosis and treatment. She’s also spent a decade joyfully using visual communication and human-centered design to facilitate team collaboration and improve our healthcare experience. She lives, skis, hikes, and eats chocolate in Burlington, VT. Bon and Katie talk about designing visual health histories, why hospitals should hire designers and improving communication between patients and healthcare professionals.

EP 26: Designing Relationships in Healthcare | Larry Chu Mar 25, 2021

Show notes

Larry Chu, MD is a Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine and Director of the Stanford Anesthesia Informatics and Media (AIM) Lab. Dr. Chu is an NIH-funded clinical researcher and is Executive Director of Stanford Medicine X, the world's longest-running and most-discussed academic program on patient-centered emerging technology and medicine. He has written eight books, over 50 papers and over 50 book chapters in academic anesthesiology. He is a member of the editorial advisory board for The BMJ, one of the most influential general medical journals in the world. Bon and Larry talk about flattening hierarchies, creating safe spaces in healthcare, co-designing with patients and embracing curiosity in the culture of Medicine.

EP 25: Design as a Human Right | Mokena Makeka Mar 18, 2021

Show notes

Mokena Makeka was raised in Maseru, Lesotho and New York. He is an accomplished architect, artist, curator, designer, global leader, scholar and urbanist. He is at the forefront of thinking on contemporary inclusive African Cities. Mokena studied architecture at the University of Cape Town and has executive leadership qualifications from the Harvard Kennedy School, Oxford University and Wits University. He is adjunct professor at Cooper Union, New York and at Carleton University, Canada. In 2015 he was a Young Global leader at the World Economic Forum and he is an Aspen Fellow in leadership. Currently Mokena is a Principal at Dalberg Advisors. He is also the founder of the House of Makeka, a premium lifestyle suite of design and product experiences. He has won international awards with his urban planning firm Makeka DesignLab/Works. Bon and Mokena talk about design as a human right, how hip hop culture informed Mokena’s architectural philosophy and understanding people through the environments they create.

EP 24: Designing for Global Health | Michael Ngigi Mar 11, 2021

Show notes

Michael Ngigi is the co-studio Lead of ThinkPlace Kenya where he leads a team of designers drawn from over 8 different countries. He’s passionate about Africa and unlocking the potential of the continent through design thinking. Michael has traveled across Africa understanding the different cultures and connecting people with solutions to their challenges. Early in his career he acknowledged the power of supporting people to identify their own challenges and the magic of facilitating the process of solving these challenges on their own. Michael is a board member of Design for Health, a global initiative led by the United States Agency for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and sits on the Technical Advisory Group of Living Labs, an initiative by PATH. Michael is also currently studying at the Harvard Business School Program for Leadership Development. Bon and Michael talk about his incredible journey from living on the streets of Nairobi to becoming a designer, incorporating design in public health projects and throwing our biases out the window.

EP 23: Designing for Justice | Antionette Carroll Mar 04, 2021

Show notes

Antionette D. Carroll is the founder and CEO of Creative Reaction Lab, a nonprofit social enterprise designing healthy and racially equitable communities for Black and Latinx populations through education and training programs, community engagement consulting and open-sourced tools. Creative Reaction Lab is a movement challenging racial inequities in the education, media, health and healthcare, and government and public service sectors. Prior to CRXLAB, Carroll spent 10 years in the advertising and marketing industry. Antionette has held national leadership positions on diversity and inclusion at the AIGA and multiple non-profit organizations. Bon and Antionette talk about what it means to be a redesigner for justice, the relationship between health and equity, and her journey in design.

EP 22: Redesigning Happy Hour | Ben Branson Feb 25, 2021

Show notes

Ben Branson is the Founder of Seedlip and Æcorn Drinks, the world’s first distilled non-alcoholic spirits and aperitifs. His mission is two fold: Solve the dilemma of ‘what to drink when you’re not drinking’ and continue his family’s 300 years of farming heritage. With offices in the Chilterns, Los Angeles and Sydney, Seedlip is now available in 29 cities including New York, Barcelona, Shanghai & Singapore and served in many of the world’s most awarded bars, restaurants, hotels. Ben was named as one of the Top 50 most influential people in food and drink by The Telegraph and awarded Young Achiever of The Year by The Drinks Business. He continues to pioneer the non-alcoholic category forward with the launch of Æcorn Drinks in Selfridges and The Savoy in May 2019. Bon and Ben talk about tackling the public health challenge of excessive alcohol consumption, normalizing the choice not to drink alcohol and how peas can be turned into a delicious cocktail.

EP 21: Designing Equitable Places | Katherine Darnstadt Feb 18, 2021

Show notes

Katherine Darnstadt is the founder of Latent Design, a boutique architecture and urban design firm leveraging civic innovation and social impact to design more equitable spaces and systems. Since founding her practice in 2010, Katherine and her firm have prototyped new design systems to advance urban agriculture, support small business, create spaces for youth makers, advance building innovation and create public space frameworks. Concurrently, she is the founder of Boombox, Chicago's first micro retail popup in a shipping container. To date the program has supported over 150 small businesses and built new models of finance and policy to support micro retail in Chicago. In addition, she recently co-founded a community design nonprofit, Design Trust Chicago to address ongoing spatial and social injustices in the built environment.

Bon and Katherine talk about the role of architecture in improving public health, repurposed buses acting as mobile produce markets and redefining public spaces.

EP 20: Designing Behavior | Kathleen Brandenburg Feb 11, 2021

Show notes

Selected by Fast Company as a Master of Design and one of 50 Most Influential Designers, Kathleen Brandenburg is an internationally recognized founder, thought leader, educator and speaker on the global stage—from Delhi to Hong Kong to the Mayo Clinic. Named a “Creative Maverick,” Kathleen has devoted her career to elevating design as a strategic value for business, organizations, and society. An early pioneer and advocate of human-centered design, she was one of the first to link design, business strategy, and innovation when she co-founded IA Collaborative, the global design and innovation consultancy, in 2000.

Today, Kathleen is leading the conversation to elevate design’s impact even further, championing it as the way to solve our world’s most urgent problems. A Harvard Visiting Professor of Design for Social Innovation, she is at the forefront of a movement to change the way healthcare understands and applies design, and is the author of Design for Health: The Beginning of a New Dialogue Between Design and Public Health.

Kathleen and I talk about designing for behavior, how research is creative and bringing joy into healthcare.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected