Who are we missing?

Fabricants are makers. I have worked at the forefront of design & technology for more than 25 years, making everything from interactive environments to navigation systems, smart infrastructure, and medical devices for organizations as varied as MTV, Daimler Chrysler, GE & UNICEF. I designed my first mobile and tablet apps more than a decade before the release of the iPhone. I recently made a book, User Friendly, with journalist Cliff Kuang that tells the origin story of user experience design. These days I lead the global team at Dalberg Design with studios in London, Mumbai, Nairobi and NY. We apply human centered design to address societal challenges in more than 40 countries. Prior to joining Dalberg, I served as the VP of Creative for frog design for 13 years. I enjoy writing about design and social impact and serve on the board of Praekelt.org, a leading tech company in South Africa that develops mobile services that reach more than 100 million people with life-saving information.

I am a Creative Lead and the Studio Lead for the Nairobi Dalberg Design studio. For the past 15 years I have touched many facets of design across global public health and digital technology industries. I have committed my career thus far to designing and building innovations that impact social change, movement and revolution. My design career has been grounded in human-centered design (HCD) methods with a focus on designing digital technologies that create channels for underserved populations to access quality health care. As a design leader I have grown a one-person design team to a multi-disciplinary team across the Africa region. My work has been rooted in building capacity for service design and aligning design structures with global design frameworks. I thrive at the intersection of service design, interaction design, graphic design and product development teams, in addition to design research.

I am the Asia Director for Dalberg Design. I work with organisations to help them become purpose-led, and building a culture of innovation to solve complex global challenges. I have worked closely with teams to combine data with field insights and bring a human-centred focus to civic design, financial inclusion, technology, and policy challenges. At Dalberg, I have provided creative leadership to a range of clients such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Omidyar Network, World Bank, Google amongst others.This included helping policy-makers and financial service providers understand consumer needs related to data protection and privacy, creating a behavioural and attitudinal model to map low income consumer segments, and helping investors understand small enterprises in emerging markets. Prior to Dalberg, I spent five years at IDEO helping corporate clients bring new products, services and brand innovations to markets across Asia, Europe and North America.