Design and Social Impact

Design and Social impact
Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
A Cross-Sectoral Agenda for Design Education, Research, and Practice
Design and Social impact

Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
A white paper based on the Social Impact Design Summit, a convening by the Smithsonians Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum; the National Endowment for the Arts; and The Lemelson Foundation at The Rockefeller Foundation offices in New York on February 27, 2012.
2013 Smithsonian Institution Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Smithsonian Institution 2 East 91st Street New York, NY 10128 www.cooperhewitt.org Published by The Smithsonians Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts and The Lemelson Foundation. Produced by: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Bill Moggridge, Former Director (19432012) Caroline Baumann, Acting Director Caroline Payson, Education Director Cynthia E. Smith, Curator of Socially Responsible Design Sarah Freeman, Public Education Manager National Endowment for the Arts Joan Shigekawa, Acting Chairman Jason Schupbach, Design Director Jennifer Hughes, Design Specialist The Lemelson Foundation Carol Dahl, Executive Director Abigail Sarmac, Program Officer Text by Julie Lasky Design: OCD Images: Smithsonian Institution Printed in the United States of America. The Social Impact Design Summit andDesign and Social Impact: a cross-sectoral agenda for design education, research and practicewere made possible by The Lemelson Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Surdna Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation. This publication is available free of charge at www.cooperhewitt.org, the website of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum; www.arts.gov, the website of the National Endowment for the Arts; and www.lemelson. org, the website of The Lemelson Foundation.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary Summit Format 50 Years of Socially Responsible Design
6 10 12
Introduction 8
I. Gaps and Challenges

Knowledge Sharing Standards and Ethics Cultural Bias
II. Models
21 22 22
Definition 20
Hybrid Models Design Center Models Incubator Models Contextual Models Parallel Model
26 29 29 30 31
Sustainability 23 Implementation 24 Value and Impact 24
Social Design as Approach Social Design as Discipline The Curriculum The Pipeline
III. Pathways
32 32 33 34
IV. Proposals
V. Notes
36 38 38 38 39
1. Expand Networks 2. Emphasize Storytelling 3. Build a Culture of Evaluation 4. Form Intelligent Coalitions 5. Create Alternative Funding Strategies
Notes 40
Recommendations 35
Appendixes
A. Summit Participants 41 B. Participant Survey Summary Remarks 42
table of contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Social impact designone term that refers to the practice of design for the public good, especially in disadvantaged communitieshas attracted powerful interest in recent years. Increasingly, both practicing designers and students are seeking opportunities in this burgeoning discipline. But are the professional and academic structures in place to support them? And how might such structures be improved? On February 27, 2012, the Social Impact Design Summit was convened at The Rockefeller Foundation headquarters in New York to address the challenges and opportunities within the field today. Organized by the Smithsonians Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, with the National Endowment for the Arts and The Lemelson Foundation, the one-day event brought together 34 leaders of social impact design and a dozen representatives of foundations that support social programs. The summit participantswho represented both nonprofit and for-profit organizations, as well as academic programs, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)drew a picture of a professional area that has demonstrated many achievements and much promise.
Stretching across several design disciplinesincluding product design, graphic design, urban design, and architectureand far from formalized in many aspects of its practice, social impact design also possesses a number of gaps and faces a variety of challenges. Among the forces inhibiting social impact design today, summit participants singled out the lack of a clear understanding of what the term means. Greater clarity, they proposed, would lead to better-defined goals and would boost appreciation of the value of the field. Participants also pointed to a dearth of accepted standards and ethical guidelines that would help normalize the practice, as well as a lack of knowledge-sharing structures among social impact designers, especially those who work across design disciplines. Cultural bias was seen as a potential hazard, especially when designers lacked understanding of local culture. And the difficulties of implementing and sustaining social impact design projects constituted a large part of this discussion. Finally, participants called for more stringent measures to assess the effects of social impact design and thereby demonstrate its value. Social impact design, it was noted, is both an art and a science, demanding not just creative skills but also rigor in its practice.
Design and Social Impact
After enumerating gaps and challenges, the summit participants engaged in a discussion of organizational models for social impact design. These ranged from corporations with divisions dedicated to humanitarian work to nonprofits supported by philanthropic funds and volunteer labor. Many models were hybrids, with for-profit and nonprofit features combined under a single entity. Other examples were based at universities or evolved from academic programs. Still others were incubators that nurtured promising individuals and enterprises. The social impact design activities of existing governmental agencies and programs in Asia and South America were cited as instructive, while lessons were drawn from the work of educators and practitioners in Africa. Finally, public health was offered as a parallel discipline whose successful growth has made it worth studying and perhaps imitating. The summits third segment was devoted to educational and professional pathways, and to the question of whether careers in social impact design are currently viable. Participants described what they considered to be essential studies in a social impact design curriculum and the complexity of combining pedagogy with ongoing projects in the field. The tenuous nature of the pipelines delivering graduates to jobs was also discussed. And several participants even questioned the very existence of social
design as a discipline, wondering whether it would be better to consider it a strategy that could be embedded into any design practice. The summits fourth and longest segment concerned solutions. Participants offered suggestions for expanding networks and fostering communications among social impact design practitioners; for emphasizing storytelling as a way to convey the value of social impact design projects; for building a culture of evaluation that will create decisive benchmarks for professional accomplishments; for forming intelligent coalitions that will expand learning resources; and for creating alternative funding strategies to support all of this work.
executive summary
Introduction
The Smithsonians Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, The Lemelson Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, with support from the Surdna Foundation, organized a daylong meeting at The Rockefeller Foundations headquarters in New York City with a select group of designers, educators, and foundation representatives who are active in the growing field of design for social impact. Socially responsible design is an overarching term for design that is socially, environmentally, and economically sustainablethree quality-of-life pillars defined and addressed by an international community.1 The field is also known as public-interest design, social design, social impact design, socially responsive design, transformation design, and humanitarian design. In this report, the terms social impact design and socially responsible design will be used interchangeably.2 The Social Impact Design Summit brought together a range of participants and stakeholders from nonprofit organizations and for-profit businesses and design firms; government agencies and NGOs; and universities. Working on international and United Statesbased projects, the group was selected to represent an array of approaches, experiences, and perspectives, and testified to the diverse arenas and modes in which social impact design is undertaken. Socially motivated design has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, and the seeds of interest have sprouted
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in a variety of locations. As designers, who have always been professional problem solvers, have moved more assuredly to authoring systems and strategies as well as objects, they have turned their sights to the needs of underserved communities. At the same time, design students, many of whom have come of age in economically turbulent times, are redefining the purposes of their studies and ambitions and finding increasing value in humanitarian work. Occupying wide geographic and disciplinary territories, the field encompasses domestic and international projects in both rural and urban environments. It involves the design of graphic and digital communications, of domestic products, medical devices and farming equipment, of buildings and transportation, and of large infrastructure systems. These designers also tackle critical issues that are less concrete such as the fragility and lack of equal access to natural resources, or the barriers to health and educational services in poor communities globally. Such designers can be found equally in the realms of economic development, community improvement, and disaster relief. Social impact design has been a subjectboth exclusively and tangentiallyof a number of recent public programs and exhibitions. Its practitioners have occupied the stages at conferences on technology, the environment, business, and culture. They are staples at forums sponsored by design
Richie Moalosi, University of Botswana, addresses Social Impact Design Summit participants (clockwise, left to right) Patrice Martin, IDEO.org; Jon Polhamus, GE Healthcare Global Design; Thomas Fisher, University of Minnesota; Amy Smith, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Robert Fabricant, frog design; and Michael Cohen, The New School.
organizations such as American Institute of Architects (AIA), Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), AIGA (a multidisciplinary design association that was formerly known as the American Institute of Graphic Arts), and American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), as well as by university design departments. In 2007, Cooper-Hewitts groundbreaking Design for the Other 90% exhibition brought socially responsible design to the publics attention in a museum context; a sequel, Design with the Other 90%: CITIES, opened at the United Nations Headquarters in 2011. In his summit opening remarks, Jason Schupbach, Director of Design Programs at the National Endowment for the Arts, stated that the goals of the Social Impact Design Summit were to build a stronger support structure for social impact design and to help young designers who want to enter the arena understand what their opportunities are. We want to know more today about whats happening right now in the field, Schupbach said. We want to know what are the big needs of the field, what are the big issues, and to come out of here today with a few incremental ideas of ways to move forward. Abigail Sarmac, Program Officer at The Lemelson Foundation, which supports invention in the service of improving lives, stressed the importance of the users perspective in shaping innovation. Lemelson believes
Introduction
that design is the critical translator for that user perspective, she said. What can private foundations and the government sector do to promote this field? Answers to all of these questions were sought in three discussion topics formulated by representatives of CooperHewitt, who organized and moderated the summit:
1. Where are the gaps in the field of socially responsible design? What are the biggest challenges to this area of design? 2. What are organizational models of successful and sustainable ways of working in socially responsible design? What are current organizations missing? What are they doing wrong? 3. How can we effectively prepare future generations of designers for this growing area of design? Is this a viable career path? If so, how do we raise awareness of this profession?
summit format
Led by Bill Moggridge, then the Director of Cooper-Hewitt, and Cynthia E. Smith, the museums Curator of Socially Responsible Design, the summit consisted of two parts. In a morning session, 22 participants who were involved in social impact design engaged in a discussion of the three topics, while 12 representatives of foundations that supported socially responsible design projects observed and made comments when invited to join the conversation. The designer participants addressed each topic for one hour, concluding with a brief summary issued by three members of the group. Later, in an afternoon session, the participants were joined by 12 additional social impact designers and leaders, and divided into five teams to pursue the question of how to surmount the gaps and challenges addressed throughout the day, providing some near- and long-term solutions and actions to move productively into the future. Prior to the summit, questionnaires were sent to participants requesting responses to the three topics as a springboard for discussion. (See Appendix B, page 42.) The quotations in this document are drawn from these writings, as well as from participants statements at the summit. During the day, several participants also shared their responses to the event in video interviews conducted by Cooper-Hewitt. The full list of summit attendees, along with their biographical information, can be found in Appendix A (page 41).
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50 Years of Socially Responsible Design
Select highlights from 1963 to 2012

The Limits to Growth by Meadows, Meadows, Randers, and Behrens 3 is published and lays the foundation for sustainable design by modeling how global ecological constraints would have significant influence on global developments in the 21st century.
Whole Earth Catalog launched by Stewart Brand includes alternative technology and design sections by designer Jay Baldwin and inspires a generation.
Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered by British economist E. F. Schumacher popularizes the concept of appropriate technology (manufacture using local resources for local needs).
1963 International Council of Societies of Industrial Designers (Icsid) is granted special consultative status with UNESCO to engage design on numerous development projects for the betterment of the human condition.
1964 Architecture Without Architects exhibition organized by Bernard Rudofsky opens at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, bringing vernacular architecture from around the world into critical focus. Architects Renewal Committee in Harlem (ARCH), established by C. Richard Hatch as one of the first community design centers in the United States, begins operation.
1968 American Institute of Architects (AIA) convention keynote address by Urban League head Whitney M. Young Jr. challenges the AIA on issues relating to social responsibility anddiversity within the profession.
1973 A low cost sweat equity housing model is successfully tested in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) by Millard and Linda Fuller, who go on to establish Habitat for Humanity International in 1976.
This timeline represents highlights spanning fifty years of socially responsible design compiled from Summit attendees, with additional research sources from John Cary, Jane Margolies, Leslie Speer, Anthony Schuman, and Kate Stohr.
Resolutions, legislation, and publications that influenced design.
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Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change by Victor Papanek is published, challenging the established design world by advocating a more sustainable, inclusive approach to design.
1976 The Design for Need symposium is held at the Royal College of Art in London, examining early industrial design ideals designing in human termswhere social purpose is combined with aesthetic expression and symbolic value.
1979 Inclusive design research by industrial designer Patricia A. Moore explores design, aging, and poverty.
1981 Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR) is formed to raise professional and public awareness of critical social and environmental issues and to further responsive design and planning. International Development Enterprises (iDE), a nonprofit organization, is founded by Paul Polak to develop low-cost solutions for farmers who engage the markets to attack poverty at its roots.
1984 Les Ateliers Studio International is established by Liz Davis creating the Design and Development Lab, which places French design students with NGOs working in the field to support realistic cooperation.
50 years of socially responsible design
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Brundtland Commissions report defines sustainable development as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is signed into law to prohibit discrimination based on disability, establishing design standards that enable accessibility.
Earth Summit, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, convenes in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, producing international guidelines for more sustainable development.
1988 Designs for Independent Living, an exhibition of products for the elderly and physically disabled, is organized by Cara McCarty and opens at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.
1991 ApproTEC (renamed KickStart in 2005) is founded by Martin Fisher and Nick Moon, working with designers to create simple money-making tools for African entrepreneurs. Design Corps is founded by Bryan Bell to provide solutions for the daily needs of everyday people through design.
1993 The Doors of Perception international festival is initiated by John Thackara, enabling social innovators to imagine alternative sustainable futures and design practical responses. Rural Studio at Auburn University is founded by Sam Mockbee and Dennis K. Ruth to design and build low-cost innovative housing for families living in rural Alabama.
1995 BaSiC Initiative, a universitybased international learning service program, is founded by Sergio Palleroni, David Riley, and Steve Badanes to engage problems of communities traditionally underserved by the design fields.
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United Nations Millennium Development Goals are adopted, focusing the international community on eight key objectives to free people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations by 2015.
1997 NESsT is founded by entrepreneurs Lee Davis and Nicole Etchart as an international nonprofit to support the planning, start-up, and development of social enterprises in emerging markets.
1999 Architecture for Humanity, a grassroots nonprofit organization that seeks architectural solutions to humanitarian crises, is founded by Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr.
2000 Structures for Inclusion annual conference, organized by Bryan Bell, is held at Princeton University for the first time to share best practices for those currently underserved by the architecture profession. The Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship is established to partner emerging architects and community-based organizations in the service of low- and moderateincome communities.
2001 Design without Borders is initiated by Peter Opsvik and the Foundation for Design and Architecture in Norway to partner industrial designers with local universities and communities in Uganda and Guatemala. Engineers Without Borders USA is founded by Bernard Amadei, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Designmatters is launched at the Art Center College of Design to engage students and faculty on the global issues of healthcare, public policy, social entrepreneurship, and sustainable human development.
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Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart is published as a manifesto calling for ecologically intelligent design.
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid by C. K. Prahalad is published, noting the worlds five billion poor make up the fastest growing market in the world.
2002 The INDEX: Award is established as the largest monetary design prize in the world, awarded biennially to designs that improve vital areas of peoples lives. D-Lab is founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Amy Smith to foster the development, design, and dissemination of appropriate technologies and sustainable solutions within the framework of international development.
2003 Design that Matters is founded by Tim Prestero and Neil Cantor to create new products that allow social enterprises in developing countries to offer improved services and scale more quickly.
2004 RED, an interdisciplinary team of designers, policy analysts, and social scientists, is formed by the United Kingdoms Design Council to tackle social and economic issues through design-led innovation. The d.school at Stanford University is founded by David Kelley to apply design thinking in creating strategic change for larger problems facing humankind.
2005 The Aspen Design Summit is relaunched when the International Design Conference in Aspen partners with the AIGA to create a new type of design gathering for a world facing serious challenges. Global Studio is launched by University of Sydney, Columbia University, and the University of Rome as an international, place-based interdisciplinary and participatory design and planning studio, under the leadership of Anna Rubbo. The 1% program is launched by Public Architecture under the leadership of John Peterson to connect nonprofits with architecture and design firms willing to give of their time pro bono. The One Laptop per Child prototypea rugged $100 laptop for underserved children designed by Continuum (Fuseproject designed subsequent models)is unveiled at the World Summit on the Information Society by MIT Media Labs Nicholas Negroponte and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Design Studio for Social Intervention is founded by Kenneth Bailey as a creative lab for activists, artists, academics, and the public to come together and imagine new approaches to addressing complex social issues.
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Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises publication is organized and edited by Architecture for Humanity.
2006 Design for the Majority, the professional interest section of the Industrial Designers Society of America, is formed and headed by Leslie Speer. Gulf Coast Community Design Studio (GCCDS)a model post-disaster design, planning, research services programis established under the leadership of David Perkes in Biloxi, Mississippi, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
2007 Design for the Other 90% exhibition and catalogue is organized by Cynthia E. Smith and opens at the Smithsonians Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York. D-Rev, a nonprofit, is founded by Paul Polak to create a design revolution by enlisting designers to develop products and ideas that will benefit the worlds poor population.
2008 The first Better World by Design conference, organized and led by Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design students, brings together professionals and students from multiple disciplines to better understand the power of design, technology, and enterprise in leading real-world change. The Curry Stone Design Prize is established by Clifford Curry and Delight Stone as an annual prize awarded to designs that improve peoples lives and the state of the world. Catapult Design is founded by designer and engineer Heather Fleming to develop and design tools and technologies for the developing world. Project H is founded by Emily Pilloton to utilize the power of design and hands-on building to catalyze communities and educate youth in order to improve the quality of life in their own backyards. The Design for Social Impact workshop and the IDEO-designed toolkit are funded by The Rockefeller Foundation to educate and engage design professionals for active involvement with the social sector.
2009 DESIS: Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability is founded by Ezio Manzini as a network of university-based design labs that work with local, regional, and global partners for social change and sustainability. Transform, an annual collaborative symposium on innovations in health care experience and delivery, is launched by the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation. Change Observer, a web-based channel focused on design strategies for improving health, education, housing, and the environment globally, is launched by William Drenttel with support from The Rockefeller Foundation.
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2010 Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement exhibition is organized by Andres Lepik and opens at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Community Driven Design is added to Surdna Foundations Thriving Cultures Program to support the involvement of artists, architects, and designers in community-driven problemsolving and development efforts. Design Education and Social Change Symposium is organized by Winterhouse Institute, bringing together 14 educators to explore the teaching and practice of social design in undergraduate and graduate design education.
2011 Design with the Other 90%: CITIES exhibition, organized by Smithsonians Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museums curator of socially responsible design, Cynthia E. Smith, opens at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. IDEO.org is launched under the leadership of Jocelyn Wyatt and Patrice Martin as a nonprofit design organization focused solely on social innovation, enabling IDEO to make an even bigger impact on global poverty. Design for Good campaign is launched by AIGA, the professional association for design, as an online platform to build and sustain the implementation of design thinking for social change. Public Interest Design website is launched by John Cary to provide a platform for public interest designers to connect, share news, and learn about opportunities in the field.
2012 Designing for Impact is the focus of Clinton Global Initiatives Annual Meeting, with a call to design our world to create more opportunity and more equality. Social impact design is added to the National Endowment for the Arts Design Program grant guidelines as an activity eligible for federal government funding support. Social Impact Design Summit is convened by Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, National Endowment for the Arts, and The Lemelson Foundation, bringing together leaders from the design industry, community, public, and private sectors to discuss ways to advance the field of socially responsible design.
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I. Gaps and challenges
Where are the gaps in the field of socially responsible design? What are the biggest challenges to this area of design? Social impact design is a nascent field with innumerable pockets and few conventions. For this reason alone, summit participants were able to cite numerous challenges to the practice of social impact design and a range of innovative organizational models, but not one definitive version to follow. Although the summit format called for the articulation of hurdles as a first topic of conversation, in many cases the citation of gaps and challenges quickly evolved into discussions of opportunities and solutions. This white paper follows the summits organizational structure in delineating obstacles first. Subsequent sections address some of the many models of excellence and offer proposals for future practice.
exposed the complex and global nature of the issues these designers are addressing. Because the summit brought together participants who represented so many diverse areas of socially responsible design, they not only reflected on but also enacted the struggle of finding a common language. Kenneth Bailey, founder of the Design Studio for Social Intervention, a nonprofit that assists social justice organizations with design-minded approaches, boiled the question down to its essence when he asked the morning assembly, How do we define socially responsible, and how does it get measured, and who gets to frame what we mean by socially responsible? Socially responsible is often the wrong term to define what it is trying to address, noted Laura Kurgan, Associate Professor of Architecture at Columbia University, where she directs the Spatial Information Design Lab. Often, socially responsible design implies a) solving the problem of poverty, or b) prioritizing people and use in a design problem rather than design itself, or c) sustainable design, which is equally hard to define. Being socially responsibleor solving urban problems through designmeans addressing politics, globalization, health, education, criminal justice, or economics among others.
Definition
Due to social impact designs relatively new and growing status, several participants pointed to a lack of agreement about the fields definition and parameters. The conversation was not representative of an identity crisis, but rather
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Thomas Fisher, Professor of Architecture and Dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota, called for a more rigorous definition of social design as vital in structuring educational programs for aspiring practitioners. Because social impact design lacks an identity as a discipline distinct from the many fields it comprisesarchitecture, industrial design, anthropology, public health there is no clear path of study, he said. Arguing for an interweaving of social impact design with the machinery of policy, architect Teddy Cruz, who has worked extensively on social problems at the San DiegoTijuana border, said, Social impact design is not just a category; it needs to be embedded. In this he represented a divide, which was evident throughout the day, between participants who viewed social impact design as a strategy or system that helps contour efforts across different professions, agencies, and scales of endeavor, and those who saw it more concretely, as a discipline with defined educational and career tracks. (See Pathways, page 32.) The lack of a clear definition of social design posed a barrier to communication for some summit participants, and many attendees agreed that there were limitations around a common language. William Drenttel, Editorial Director of Design Observer and director of the Mayo Clinics Transform
gaps and challenges
Symposium on health care innovation, noted, One of the biggest gaps is we dont have a common vocabulary. If I talk to Robert [Fabricant, of frog] about solar energy in India, or talk [to Mariana Amatullo, of Art Center College of Design] about cervical cancer in the Latina community in LA, fieldwork means very different things.
Knowledge Sharing
It was suggested that, without a common vocabulary, social impact designers are limited in creating the connections that foster a pool of knowledge. The biggest gap, Drenttel said, is that we dont have an infrastructure among ourselves in order to work together to build a community where these bases of expertise can be expanded upon, where health care is different from housing and yet we can share the knowledge systems across disciplines. There is need to document and publicize promising, innovative, socially responsible design projects around the globe so that others can contextualize and replicate them in the socio-cultural environment, commented Dr. Richie Moalosi, Senior Lecturer in Industrial Design at the University of Botswana. He pointed out that a dearth of champions of social impact design in Africa limits acceptance on the
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continent. There would be more enthusiasm for social impact design in Africa, he suggested, if a greater number of regional models of exemplary practice were brought to light. Clear efforts have been made to provide social impact design information resources that are available to any and all professionals. These include the SEED Network, co-founded by Bryan Bell to establish protocols for community-based design; IDEO.coms Human Centered Design Toolkit, which walks designers through the process of working with low-income communities; AIGAs Living Principles framework, which includes educational tools promoting sustainable design; and Cooper-Hewitts Design Other 90 Network, an online open database and social network. However, limited resources or a resistant organizational culture can be barriers to knowledge sharing, and social impact design still lacks a central, Wikipedia-like site that could serve all of its different branches.
from each other rather than the traditional approach where rich countries seem to have solutions for everyone else. Even within disciplines, there can be more opportunities for designers to share experiences. Krista Donaldson, CEO of D-Rev, a nonprofit that designs medical devices for disadvantaged communities, noted, Many practitioners dont have time to write about our work, even though we are the ones on the front lines trying new things, implementing, and connecting dots to bring about change (or alternatively failing in doing so, and trying new things). Academics have incentive to write about their workbut practitioners do not.
Standards and Ethics
The loosely defined practice of designing for social impact means that while more professionals are interested in this area of design, devising innovative approaches, there is no one standard to reference or follow. Public Interest Renee Kemp-Rotan, cofounder of the Black Design News Practices in Architecture, a recent report funded by the Network, Director of Special Projects in the Office of the Latrobe Prize of the Fellows of the American Institute of Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, and former Chief of Urban Architects, 4 disclosed that 81 percent of the 383 architects Design and Development for the City of Atlanta, stated that who responded to the survey answered affirmatively to the design intelligence will continue to suffer from redundant question, Are you doing design in the public interest? (The efforts and wasted resources that come from a lack of phrase public interest design has been widely adopted by shared knowledge. After 30 years in her career, she said, I American architects to describe socially focused efforts.) In still cant go with a touch of my computer to a single site that other words, its like green design ten years ago, said Bryan gives me a range of case studies that have been attempted . . . Bell, Executive Director of Design Corps and cofounder of those that have worked, those that have not worked. . . . the SEED Network, which established protocols for commu[W]hether nonprofit, for-profit, public sector, private sector, nity-based design, and a member of the research team that there needs to be a home, a knowledge base that we can all compiled the report. Everything was green design because plug into and somehow find ourselves on the matrix of events there were no standards. Thats not helpful with convincing and problem-solving situations that have occurred historically. the public that were actually being socially responsible. In addition to a body of knowledge tapped by design professionals across disciplines, some participants called for a stronger exchange of ideas between designers and recipients of design services. What are we getting from the communities were engaging with? What are we leaving behind, and how do we create a dynamic exchange of knowledge in that framework? asked Mariana Amatullo, Vice President of the Designmatters initiative at Art Center College of Design. That doesnt happen as often as it should. A recurrent theme at the summit was the underappreciated knowledge held by local populations. There is more chance for socially responsible design to take off in the developing world and emerging markets than in Western countries, insisted Bernard Amadei, Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Colorado. The young entrepreneurs there have a lot to teach us. They know the market; they know the constraints and are very creative. So socially responsible design should be seen as a two-way street, where we learn
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The deeply ethical foundation of ubuntua philosophy shared, under different names, by numerous African culturescan be instructive for practitioners of social impact design, Dr. Richie Moalosi said. Translated from the Bantu language as I am because we are, ubuntu, he explained, defines a process for earning respect by first giving it and gaining empowerment by empowering others. Everyone is invited to contribute toward the goals and common wealth of the community. . . . If this concept is applied to socially responsible design, it could result in the mobilization and development of sustainable lifestyles. 5
Cultural Bias
Social impact designers working globally have a mandate to tread sensitively within the cultures to which theyre providing services, or they will create the perception, if not the reality, of saddling a community with ineffective or inappropriate
Teddy Cruz, Estudio Teddy Cruz; and Laura Kurgan, Spatial Information Design Lab.
efforts, or even creating real harm. Rene Kemp-Rotan is currently trying to redress that scenario with a culture code that offers a comprehensive framework of 100 cultural considerations for rebuilding post-earthquake Haiti. These variables could be applied to many places where design, disaster, and the diaspora are concerned. Design is never a culture-neutral exercise, she declared at the summit. I am dedicated to developing tools for designers that begin to measure our own cultural competency before we try to design and develop revitalization projects in countries that are outside of our cultural experience or expertise. For Kirtee Shah, an architect who is Director of the Ahmedabad Study Action Group in India, cultural bias takes the form of blindersa failure to recognize the innovative capacity of local populations. As an example, he offered the Gujarat Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Project, which gave residents of 900 villages in the state of Gujarat, India, a chance to participate in the restitution of their homes after the buildings were destroyed or badly damaged by a 2001 earthquake. Shah pointed out that 60 to 70 percent of Indias housing stock is built by the people themselvesno architects, no engineers, no housing finance agencies. . . . These are major designers solving major problems. We have lost the ability to look at that. We are not supporting them. We are not recognizing them.
gaps and challenges
Sustainability
As is Shah in India, several others around the table are actively working to increase local capacity. At different points, Patrice Martin, Co-Lead and Creative Director of IDEO.org, Amy Smith, the founder of MITs D-Lab, and Jennifer Toy, a cofounder of the Kounkuey Design Initiative, all expressed a mission to boost the knowledge and resources of nascent designers in the places they served. Martin was committed to handing local communities the design tools they need to sustain a project beyond IDEOs involvement. Toy was working to build a landscape design program at the University of Nairobi to educate practitioners who can help improve local informal settlements, such as the citys Kibera slum. (Like Martin, Toy defined the goal of socially responsible design as enabling a community to take on a project and to create a life of its own after weve left.) And Smith said that she hoped that design would come to be regarded as an empowerment tool rather than as a thing that creates objects or buildings. Looking at how can we shift the way were doing social impact design so that its creating designers rather than design. Summit participant Bernard Kiwia, a Tanzanian designer working with Global Cycle Solutions and former student of Smiths, offered what amounted to testimony when he described how he came to design a bicycle-powered cell phone charger. (See Models, page 26.)
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Implementation
A number of summit participants spoke about the challenge of translating abundant energy, talent, and ideas into completed projects. Sometimes local inventors dont have time to create something to put into market, Kiwia said. There is no time to work. . . . You have to take care of the family. . . .
from impact and post-occupancy surveys, designers lack a clear lever to persuade nonprofits, foundations, government agencies, and NGOs to contribute resources. Krista Donaldson suggested a more active alternative to socially responsible design, the overarching term used to describe socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable design, when she wrote, Socially responsible suggests subjectivity around some undefined principalswhereas social impact implies impact must be demonstrated.
I find the biggest gap happens when well-intentioned work begins to be put in the field and there isnt the support structure to implement it, Cameron Sinclair, cofounder of Architecture for Humanity, noted. The foundations are disappointMost foundations and corporate funders dont really care ed; the architect or designers are upset. But the only people about aesthetics; they care about impact, Cameron who ever suffer are the community who put their trust and Sinclair pointed out.So in the case of Haiti, where were value in the process. Sinclair identified two parts of that probuilding schools, Im not being funded on the aesthetic of cess, which are connected but separate: soft versus hard. the school. . . . Im being funded on the number of jobs When I think about soft, I think about research, development, created by that school construction. About professing the cultural connectivity, history. Hard social impact design is benefits of social impact design, he emphasized, At this really boots on the ground, getting the stuff built. . . . moment, were in the ether and can wax lyrical about it, but theres no empirical data. Though many designers are eager to enter the social impact arena, the number decreases when the work involves long, The paucity of impact data was a point made by Michael immersive stretches in the field. As Heather Fleming, CEO of Cohen, Director of the International Affairs Program at the Catapult Design, noted, university-supported fieldwork offers New School University, when he described sending students an inexhaustible supply of student labor, yet it also creates to appraise the quality of a slum-improvement project in the need for both mentorship (a luxury to busy designers) Senegal 35 years after the United Nations and World Bank and continuity, as knowledge is handed off from term to term. had launched it. We discovered when we asked the UN and And then there is the challenge of securing financial support the World Bank [that] no one did long-term evaluation. So all for the long haul. The problem, said Timothy Prestero, of this debate about aid-effectiveness and design-effectiveCEO and founder of Design that Matters, is that compared nessnobody really knows. 6 to the whole process that leads to implementationwhich includes financing, manufacture and distribution, training, and Metrics boost not only economic support, but also accountadoptiondesign is the least hard part. Right now, because ability and transparency. Under normal circumstances, Bryan implementation is so difficult and expensive, it seems like Bell said, The [design] objects created. We walk away. commercial products are the only ones that offer clear builtTherefore we are neither held responsible nor given credit for in incentives for participation. that impact. We need to be held responsible and given credit. When were given credit is when the value starts to increase. For target communities where need has been identified, the challenge is convincing local politicians and recipients of Sometimes, the problem is not demonstrating how well deits worth. When we are working with local communities, sign performs, but simply explaining what it is. Jon Polhamus, said Dr. Moalosi of the University of Botswana, the level of Brand Design Language Manager at GE Healthcare Global design is just too high. Its the elite design. The communities Design, noted that the challenge that I have as a designer: have had the problem for several years, but somehow theyve you spend so much time educating someone else on design. developed some kind of solution. Dr. Moalosi advised a Within his own organization, he recommended, a finance closer working relationship between social impact designers person should have to spend time with a marketing person, and beneficiaries on the ground. or should spend time in a hospital. That would really save us time trying to convince people about design.
Value and Impact

The biggest gap observed by participants was the absence of perceived value of social impact design, particularly as demonstrated through metrics. With limited quantitative data
Simply publicizing the gains made by social impact design would benefit the popular perception of its value, suggested Sergio Palleroni, Professor and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Solutions at Portland
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Mariana Amatullo. Designmatters.
Kirtee Shah, Ahmedabad Study Group.
State University. Palleroni proposed, in his written survey response, implementing a media campaign which helps the public, communities in need, and public agencies gain an understanding of what social design is, how it operates, the success stories, and how to access such services. Benjamin de la Pea, Associate Director for Urban Development at The Rockefeller Foundation, commented on the idea of a parallel field, public health, as a historical example of an undervalued emerging discipline that had proved its worth and as a result gained credence and authority. Public health had done so, he said, by demonstrating the economic costs of not having public health programs or policies: What
is the cost of so many people dying of malaria every year in terms of the national productivity? What are the costs of undernourishment in terms of economic growth? What are the costs of smoking and lung cancer to the general welfare of the population? Addressing summit participants, de la Pea said, What may be missingand I dont know if youll find itis the question of what are the social costs of lack of or bad design? Until you come up with that, then youre stuck with objects and processes that have no way of capturing the imagination of ever solving anything big. 7 Ideas for collecting and sharing data are discussed in greater detail in the section Proposals (page 36).
gaps and challenges
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II. models
What are organizational models of successful and sustainable ways of working in socially responsible design? In her opening remarks at the summit, Cynthia E. Smith of Cooper-Hewitt gave a prcis of different organizational structures for social impact design offered by participants in their responses to a survey issued before the event. These conventional and hybrid models included: for-profit design firms undertaking pro-bono projects; for-profit design firms that have founded separate nonprofit entities; nonprofit design organizations that are supported by grants, philanthropy, or fee-for-service, or that work under the auspices of larger nonprofit charitable institutions; and university-based design research programs. Smith also cited as models social change incubators that identify investment, support, individuals, and collaborators among social entrepreneurs, such as Ashoka, NESsT and Echoing Green. Examples of all of these categories were discussed by participants throughout the summit, as were large urban initiatives and institutional models from other professional areas, like public health. The following represent just a few of these alternative models.
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HYBRID MODELS
Different modes by which design organizations deliver a combination of for-profit and nonprofit design services.
Nonprofit Design Organization spawned by For-Profit Design Firm

IDEO.org Described by its founders as a streamlined, cost-effective organization focused exclusively on its commitment to social design, IDEO.org is a nonprofit spinoff of IDEO, the Palo Altobased design firms social design unit that concentrates on design projects in water and sanitation, agriculture, health, finance, and gender-related issues in impoverished communities. Founded in 2011, IDEO.org is supported by project fees as well as donations from foundations and social enterprises. It recently launched a fellowship program whose purpose is to train our future clients around design and design thinking, said Patrice Martin, the organizations Co-Lead and Creative Director. For its first class, eight designers and engineers, including two industrial designers and a writer from IDEOs ranks, were selected from 400 applicants for 11 months of immersion in IDEO-style strategy.
Models
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Marc Norman, Syracuse University, and Bernard Kiwia, Global Cycle Solutions (left to right).
Nonprofit Design Organization working under auspices of a Larger NGO

Mass Design Group Founded in 2010 by two Harvard architectural school graduates, Michael Murphy and Alan Ricks, MASS (Model of Architecture Serving Society) Design Group grew out of a hospital project in Rwanda that took innovative, practical steps to reduce transmission of disease. The studio has expanded its activities in Rwanda (it recently completed a primary school in Kigali), while undertaking the construction of medical facilities in Haiti. MASS Design Group currently operates under the fiscal supervision of Partners in Health, an organization with which it frequently collaborates, while it waits to secure its own nonprofit status.
for disaster relief. Today, it is a nonprofit design, construction, and development firm with 100 architects in 22 countries. Just because youre a nonprofit working with nonprofits doesnt mean you cant act like a for-profit, said Sinclair who attributed AFHs recent exponential growth to its new role financing and managing construction. AFH pays its architects on a par with professionals in the private commercial sector, Sinclair said, and it issues contracts that secure revenue for post-occupancy evaluation and knowledge sharing. The point, he explained, is to enhance and support social design as a research tool, because nobody funds that. Catapult Design Cofounded in 2009 in San Francisco by summit participant Heather Fleming, Catapult Design creates products and services for fee-paying clients who are geared toward communities in need. Projects have included solar-powered lighting for health facilities in rural Rwanda and smokeless stoves distributed in the developing world. Roughly half of Catapults revenue comes from clients, with the other half coming from donors. The studio does not use volunteer workers. Design that Matters According to its website, Design that Matters (DtM) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is directed by summit
Nonprofit Design Organizations supported by Fee-for-Service and Philanthropic Donations

Architecture for Humanity (AFH) Founded in 1999 by Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr, Architecture for Humanity originally organized competitions to spur design innovations in economically challenged communities and aggregated funds and a network of volunteer workers
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participant Timothy Prestero, leverages the skills of hundreds of volunteers in academia and industry to create breakthrough solutions for communities in need. Founded in 2001 by Prestero and other graduate students at MITs Media Lab, DtM began as an educational seminar for students looking to address real needs in communities. It is now a lowcost design company serving the developing world. Projects include an initiative to develop an infant care device to treat newborn jaundice; and a newborn incubator for the developing world made from car parts taking advantage of locally available replacement parts. Sponsors range from the MIT Media Lab to the Ashoka foundation and from USAID to corporate donors.
as workers. Others, such as the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, described below, are situated at universities but maintain more of the character of a nonacademic research and service organization.
University-based Design Initiatives

Gulf Coast Community Design Studio (GCCDS) Directed by David Perkes, GCCDS is affiliated with Mississippi State Universitys College of Architecture, Art + Design in Biloxi, yet it is characterized as a professional service and outreach program. Perkes said, In a way, our work is pushing the university model probably to its limits. . . . We are running a studio of 12 full-time professionals. No students, no semesters, no teaching other than an intern program. Established to help rebuild communities along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, GCCDS has constructed 250 houses to date, bringing a design quality into a process that would have otherwise produced a lot of standard housing, Perkes said. The university characterizes GCCDS as a research center, leaving it free to secure funding from FEMA and a host of other organizations to pay for its operating costs. MSU covers only the directors salary. As a model, one thing I have to offer is the notion that universities can in fact become a practice, Perkes said. Massachusetts Institute of Technology D-Lab Part of MITs International Development Initiativea cluster of programs, services, and eventsthe D-Lab, founded by the MacArthur genius awardwinning mechanical engineer Amy Smith, comprises 16 courses that train students to develop appropriate technologies and sustainable solutions for the developing world. An outgrowth of the D-Lab is the International Development Design Summit (IDDS), a monthlong program that gives an international group of students, professionals, and inventors the opportunity to design products in collaboration with local communities and innovators. Summits have taken place at MIT and in Colorado, Ghana, and Brazil. (In 2012, IDDS took place in So Paulo, Brazil.) One such innovator, Bernard Kiwia, a Tanzanian bicycle mechanic, attended the inaugural IDDS at MITs campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2007. As Kiwia recalled at the Social Impact Design Summit, he came out of the program a designer. Today, he is the technology manager at the social enterprise Global Cycle Solutions in Arusha and part of a team that visits villages in East Africa to understand residents needs, returning later with appropriate products. Among his designs are a bicycle-powered cell phone charger, a wheel-truing stand, and a pedal-powered drill press.
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For-Profit Design Company engaged in Nonprofit activities

frog This global interdisciplinary design firm with offices everywhere from Amsterdam to Ukraine, includes Fortune 500 corporations among its clients but also maintains a distinct unit devoted to nonprofit social innovation projects. Areas of interest range from disaster preparedness to humancentered healthcare. Robert Fabricant, a summit participant and leader of frogs healthcare expert group, has a key role in an effort to tackle the HIV epidemic in South Africa through information communicated via rapid SMS technology. He has also been involved in frogs strategic partnership with UNICEFs Innovation Group to help the organization focus on technology solutions that are scalable and replicable in multiple markets, such as an initiative to improve maternal and infant health in urban Malawi and rural Zambia.
Corporation with Social Impact Design Division

GE Healthcare Summit participant Jon Polhamus represented the Global Design program at GE Healthcare, which employs usercentered strategies for developing products. According to the divisions general manager, Bob Schwartz, as quoted on the companys website, the questions that motivate this approach are: How do we reach the hearts and minds of patients? How do we make the experience better for technologists and clinicians? How do we help them deliver high-quality healthcare with greater access at a lower cost?
Design Center ModelS

A number of social design entities are academic or research centers that are affiliated with universities. Such models may incorporate teaching into their activities and employ students
Models
INCUBATOR MODELS
Developing the skills of social design practitioners and nurturing projects through their formative stages is the aim of a variety of organizations with different priorities and strategies. Ashoka Ashoka is an international fellowship program founded by Bill Drayton in 1980 that singles out and supports social entrepreneurs. As described on its website, the organizations mission is to shape a global, entrepreneurial, competitive citizen sector: one that allows social entrepreneurs to thrive and enables the worlds citizens to think and act as changemakers. Fellows, who are nominated by an international body of advisers, are selected through a rigorous evaluation process involving multiple interviews. Currently, the network of Ashoka fellows numbers more than 3,000 in some 70 countries. They are supported by an annual budget of more than $30 million. Recent fellow projects include efforts to improve educational conditions for the Roma of Hungary and developing sustainable organic farming practices in Togo. Echoing Green Founded in 1987, Echoing Green offers a select group of emerging social entrepreneurs up to $90,000 over two years to initiate new organizations. Less than 1 percent of the thousands of applicants are accepted into the program, which offers not only startup funding but also support services and connection to a global network of mentors. Thirty-six fellows were selected in 2012 and included individuals working on the development of an online platform with life-changing resources for children and teens in foster care, and on clean and safe energy products for impoverished people in rural India. NESsT Cofounded in 1997 by Social Impact Design Summit participant Lee Davis, NESsT seeks to create sustainable social enterprises by providing organizations with the tools and strategies of business leadership, entrepreneurship, and investment. The organizations mission is to build longevity into social enterprises by offering financial alternatives to foundation support. NESsTs operations are concentrated primarily in Central Europe and South America. Among the groups represented in its portfolio are one in Peru that provides disadvantaged children with musical educations and another in Romania that employs at-risk youth and adults to produce environmentally friendly shopping bags.
evolved from unique circumstances and organizational structures in different parts of the world. Such models might reflect long-standing efforts of governments that have taken an active interest in design as a tool to improve conditions for all residentseven the poorest, as a number of case studies in Latin America were discussed. Or they might reflect responses to sudden catastrophes, such as the reconstruction project that followed an earthquake in Gujarat, India, which Kirtee Shah, director of the Ahmedabad Study Action Group, described. Gujarat Decentralized Reconstruction Project Summit participant Kirtee Shah, an architect based in India, singled out the Gujarat Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Project as exemplary for its bottom-up approach. In the process, he recalled at the summit, an enormous amount of creativity, peoples abilities, peoples design skills, and variety emerged. It became a decentralized program, which otherwise would have been centralized. In 2001, a 6.9 earthquake left 14,000 dead, 170,000 injured, and 400,000 homes destroyed or badly damaged in the state of Gujarat, India. The Gujarat Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Projectan initiative funded by the UN, World Bank, and other agenciesprovided for new infrastructure, landscaping, and earthquake-resistant buildings, giving residents of 900 affected villages a notable opportunity to participate in the design of their restored homes. One of the guiding principles set forth by Narendra Modi, Gujarats Chief Minister, was to involve people and representative institutions in the decision-making process, and reflect their priorities and aspirations in program deliverables. He characterized the project as primarily a communitybased, owner-driven program, with technical assistance from engineers provided by the government, building centers, NGOs, etc. Owners will organize reconstruction, repairs, and strengthening through informal or formal contracts with small contractors, artisans, and masons. 8 Integral Urbanization Projects Some of the most powerful, progressive models have emerged from Latin America in the last two decades, Guatemalan-born architect Teddy Cruz noted. Among the examples he singled out was Curitiba, Brazil. Jaime Lerneran architect and urban planner who became mayor of Curitiba in 1971 (the first of three administrations) and governor of the state of Paran, of which Curitiba is capital, in 1994 (the first of two administrations)used the tools of design at city scale to institute a number of publicly endorsed urban strategies that made the city greener, cleaner,
CONTEXTUAL MODELS
Summit participants pointed to models of practice that
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Renne Kemp-Rotan, Black Design News Network; Jessica Joseph and Edwin Torres, The Rockefeller Foundation; and William Drenttel, Design Observer (left to right).
more pedestrian friendly, and more sensitive to the needs of impoverished residents. Among Lerners accomplishments were motivating 70 percent of Curitibas population to separate its garbage for recycling and designing the citys transportation system: an efficient, energy-saving bus and metro network. The first of its kind, the bus rapid transit system accommodated growth while limiting urban sprawl and congested traffic, inspiring similar systems in South America and internationally.9
for having demonstrated its value to a skeptical audience in its early years. (See Gaps and Challenges, page 20.) Fisher observed a parallel between public healths challenge to traditional medicine and public interest designs alternative to for-profit design services. The problem, Fisher said, is that even socially minded designers are stuck in the equivalent of a medical model of practice. He continued, Most designers depend upon fee-based commissions, which prevents us from doing a lot of this work. . . . The more quickly we adopt a public-health model of practice, the faster we could achieve what were all talking about: a widely differentiated user-centric way of delivering health to all people, as opposed to the reactive system of medicine where you wait until somebody is sick before you deal with it. Its about prevention rather than about curing after the fact. Fisher further saw public health as not just a model but also a partner of social impact design. Its representatives, he said, are eager to work with designers and architects because theyre already realizing that a lot of public health issues are connected to the built environment. We have to figure out a way to meet them halfway. They clearly see most diseases of affluenceobesity, canceras well as diseases of poverty as key to issues of housing, sanitation, and infrastructure.
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PARALLEL MODEL
Looking beyond the examples of effective social impact design organizations, summit participants considered models in homologous disciplines. Facing the same requirements for clarity of purpose, public recognition, educational and career pathways, and financial support, how did they evolve? Among parallel models the one discussed most frequently was public health.
Public Health Introduced at the summit by University of Minnesotas Dean of the College of Design Thomas Fisher as a template for public interest design (the term more commonly used in architecture), the field of public health was cited repeatedly
Models
III. PATHWAYS
said Sharon Haar of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Rather, I would like more designers to engage social responsibility as part of the ethos of their work. There are many traditional practices whose work in affordable housing, community design and development, and institutional building is highly ethical and socially responsible [but they] do not Attitudes toward this third summit topic were divided between practitioners who viewed social impact design define themselves as socially responsible practices. as an approacha flexible tool used by a variety of professionals in multiple sectorsand those who saw it Bernard Amadei of the University of Colorado also expressed the opinion that social impact design should be a as a disciplinea systematically acquired and applied mode of practice rather than its own discrete pursuit. This set of professional skills. The education of designers is not a profession per se, he insisted. It is more about and architects interested in the public interest varies, integrating a holistic and systems approach into existing disas more courses and degree programs have emerged 10 ciplines that are involved in socially responsible design. in recent years to train aspiring professionals. The flood of offerings, distributed at myriad scales across departments and institutions, indicates the growth and Kenneth Bailey, founder of the Design Studio for Social Intervention, concurred. Design actually when done well is demand coming from a new generation interested in a point of view, he said, a perspective, much more than it this area of design. is a profession.
How can we effectively prepare future generations of designers for this growing area of design? Is this a viable career path? If so, how do we raise awareness of this profession?
Social Design as Approach

The question of how to train and mentor social impact designers calls for a thorough consideration of whether social impact design should be regarded as a discipline. I am wary of defining socially responsible design as a career path,
I question the whole mission of trying to professionalize this field, said Robert Fabricant, Vice President of Creative at frog. The advantage his company brings to clients, he said, was a facility to serve across all sectors and scales, from UNICEF to Vodafone to small social entrepreneurs. Its not a simple thing, he shared, but the best designers Ive
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worked with demand that they work across those areas and dont see this as a single-track approach. And Dan Etheridge, Assistant Director of Tulane City Center, which oversees the urban research and outreach programs at Tulane Universitys School of Architecture, suggested that even dedicated training in social impact design could be best put to use as a means of informing a general design career: Designers who aspire to be traditionally licensed practitioners of architecture can be better supported to develop a skill set in socially responsible design and then move between it and more conventional practice over time, he noted. There will always be a need for full-time leadership positions in socially responsible design, but I think there is so much work to be done that a more sustainable way of looking at it from the scale of the entire profession is to relax the boundaries that separate the way we practice rather than continue to reinforce them.
Amy Smith, founder of the D-Lab at MIT, which focuses on products and strategies for international development, offered the model of an educational program that rigorously trains aspiring social impact professionals, both academically and in fieldwork. Having grown in a decade from one to 16 classes and from 20 to 400 students, her D-Lab, Smith said, almost qualifies as a university department. Though Smith hews to an academic model, her students have a chance to go into the field as well as participate in an entire ecosystem where they can follow up, she said. And so a freshman can take a class and. . . by the time they graduate, will have created their own company to be doing this work in the field. Mariana Amatullo of Designmatters at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Californiaa cross-disciplinary initiative that engages students in ongoing social impact design projectsnot only helps train future humanitarian designers but also works with them to improve global welfare and jump-start social innovation ventures now. Efforts include projects to increase access to water in the slums of Chile and Peru, and campaigns to promote public health in the United States. Designmatters, Amatullo said, seeks to give designers the ability to move between the corporate and noncorporate and . . . navigate both.
Social Design as Discipline

Other participants, many involved with academic institutions, were more inclined to view social impact design as a clear discipline founded on well-considered educational routes rather than ad hoc experience.
pathways
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Nontraditional educational programs were also discussed as preparatory to social design careers. Thomas Fisher of the University of Minnesota, for instance, described efforts at the school to develop a nonresidential, multi-institutional online certificate program in public interest design. And Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity is helping to develop studies in social impact design that are conducted exclusively online. The fact that so many students are rebelling against their academic architecture degree or design degree and are seeking out this sort of knowledge means that theres a huge opportunity, Sinclair said.
said, and its only recently that I understood the scientific method, in terms of how do you state your hypothesis, how do you list and prioritize your assumptions, and how do you focus on falsifying your assumptions rather than validating your cherished beliefs? Bryan Bell of Design Corps advocated a better professional education in best practices and appropriate ethics, while Teddy Cruzwho transferred from teaching in the School of Architecture to the School of the Arts at the University of California, San Diegodecried a tendency among institutions to segregate social responsibility from artistic experimentation. Katie Swenson, Vice President of Design for Enterprise Community Partners, which sponsors the Enterprise Rose Fellowship program, deemed it vital to teach students more about development and how projects actually happen. To just teach design is to ignore 95 percent of what it takes to make a project happen. Design skill is extremely important, but not in a vacuum. Kirtee Shah of the Ahmedabad Study Action Group criticized the standard training of Indian architects, who are steeped in historical modernism and given little exposure to far more relevant vernacular design.
The Curriculum
But what constitutes the best education for the aspiring social impact designer? Most of the summit participants, including many of the academics, argued for curricula that extend beyond the traditional design scope. Universities are in crisis right now, Fisher said. And its not just an economic crisis; its also an intellectual crisis. Students in the universities do not want to stay within the disciplinary silos and institutional structures that we have created for them, demanding that we change the way we think about and convey knowledge. Some institutions are looking at a challenge-based curriculum, where a student would major in a discipline and minor in a challengea cross-disciplinary education in which students come out equipped to do something in the world. William Drenttel, founder of Winterhouse Institute, supported a design education in which design plays no part, at least at its foundation: I think theres an argument to be made that what we really need are designers that dont go to design school first, he said. That maybe they study politics, or economics, or even more critically for all of our futures in social enterprise, science. Dan Etheridge of Tulane City Center endorsed augmenting a traditional design education with elective classes in public health, international development, and other disciplinary environments outside of the design school culture. Jon Polhamus of GE Healthcare Global Design referred to his own heterogeneous schooling as a graphic designerwhich included courses in manufacturing, engineering, and architectureas evidence of the value that broad knowledge can bring to design activities, especially those that require collaborations with nondesigner colleagues. Timothy Prestero of Design that Matters recommended that the next generation learn how to run a disciplined experiment. I have many, many years of graduate education, he
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The Pipeline
Improving peoples lives around the world is one of the goals of social impact design education. And for young designers, there are bountiful opportunities to alleviate global hardship both in and out of school. Its quite a different matter, however, to shape a career for this type of work. The question is, are we giving students enough depth (courses and experience) in this field to make them viable when they hit the street? noted Sergio Palleroni of Portland State University. Explaining that her program at Art Center College of Design seeks to help designers move between the corporate and noncorporate and . . . navigate both, Mariana Amatullo wondered, What are the opportunities for careers that can be hybrid, that can really move across? Heather Fleming of Catapult Design suggested that the summit conversation was overemphasizing students and their futures at the expense of existing young professionals. Im more interested in how can we effectively capture this generation, she said. If you look at the designers who are in the industry right now, who are at the top of their field, its hard for them to break into this space. . . . Their salaries are going to be lower; you cant send them off into the field because maybe they have a family. Theres almost a larger hurdle for
them than for students. But if I dont want to work with just students, which I personally dont have the time to train and mentor, then how can I leverage the current design community, not just here but abroad? Krista Donaldson of D-Rev also expressed concern about guiding emerging professionals: My experience, she said, is that these young designers that are coming out now theyre fantastic. But whos going to mentor them? This is very much an apprentice-based field. How are you going to learn about commercialization? How are you going to learn about impact assessment? I think there are too few career paths, Patrice Martin of IDEO said. I also think that, because theres not a strong awareness, or because theres not enough demand for what design can do in this space, the level of quality were seeing is really inconsistent. In response to frogs Robert Fabricants point about the advantage of gaining equal experience in the nonprofit and for-profit realms, she said, My advice is to tell designers always, Go work in the private sector. Get that expertise to really be a designer, and then bring that back to the social sector, because, right now, theres not enough of that discipline and rigor that exists in this space on its own. Amy Smith of D-Lab pointed out that the discussion of career pathways focused entirely on students in the United States, as opposed to on indigenous designers in the communities in need. I do think we also have to think about the designers who are in those communities, because long-term sustainable development and change will happen if designers are living in the place and not always being brought in from universities, she said. Kirtee Shah, for his part, spoke enthusiastically about the Young Professionals program directed by the Bangkok-based Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR), which partners with universities to conduct workshops for young architects in 10 Asian countries and provide them with opportunities to practice in disadvantaged communities. This rare and bold initiative, Shah said, is showing results, costs little, and has huge long-term-impact potential.
Both Richie Moalosi of the University of Botswana and Kenneth Bailey of the Design Studio for Social Intervention spoke of the value of bringing local community members into the arena. Moalosi suggested that student exchange programs between new emerging economies and the developed economies should be encouraged as part of sharing ideas and promoting socially responsible design. Bailey spoke of his efforts to get more people of color and people from the communities were trying to serve into the field of design.
Increase the number of dedicated social impact designrelated programs in schools.

Thomas Fisher of the University of Minnesota proposed, If the academy could establish a few pilot programs in this area either as tracks in existing programs or stand-alone interdisciplinary programs in their own right, that would give students interested in working in the field a clearer path and better equip them with the skills they will need without it being ad hoc, as so often happens now.
Publicize existing opportunities for social impact design training.

Noted Sergio Palleroni of Portland State University, Programs are emerging that are making this path a distinct choice . . . but the need to make these options known to students is a problem. Are there possibilities for a national educational clearinghouse that would publicize service learning opportunities?
Create more fellowships and other postgraduate programs that serve as a bridge between education and career.
As described by Katie Swenson of Enterprise Community Partners, the organizations Enterprise Rose Fellowship partners emerging architects with local community development organizations in underserved districts for three years to work to create affordable housing. The program provides an unusual opportunity in social impact design to groom recent graduates to become professionals. We havent taken the approach so much, Youre a social designer, as rather, Youre entering the production stream, which has its own set of deliverables, Swenson said. And youre bringing your design into the heart of an existing stream to disrupt or invent within that process. The experience shows how professional identities can shift in this territory. Offered a spectrum of skills, including collaborating with financiers and policymakers, Swenson said, the majority of Rose Fellows who completed the program are designers, but working more broadly in policy and community development. For additional recommendations related to education and careers, see Proposals, page 36.
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Recommendations
Suggestions for improving educational and career pathways for aspiring social impact designers are summarized below:
Create social impact design education and work opportunities within the communities seeking to solve problems.
pathways
IV. proposals
In the summits afternoon session, participants from the morning discussion were joined by 12 additional design leaders representing a range of organizations. Together they reviewed the three topics that structured the event: Where are the gaps? What are the models? How can we prepare the next generation of designers? The participants broke into five groups to formulate recommendations for the near and distant future. Themes that emerged from this free play of ideas, along with those proposed in the surveys issued before the summit, are summarized below.
hubs to integrate informationsuch as a database of resources and potential funding opportunitiesacross design disciplines. Convene multidisciplinary and discipline-specific meetings about socially responsible design around specific issues, communities, and geographies.
1. Expand Networks
There is much that members of this diverse, global community can learn from one another and from the constituents they serve. Suggestions to foster relationships and pool knowledge in an effort to expand interdisciplinary research and participation in social impact design include: Short-term Issue a call for research papers on social impact design, and develop or build on existing web-based knowledge
Long-term Establish a two-way connection between design professionals and students working in the developing world and the informal modes practiced by local innovators seeking resources to put their products into the market. For instance, community innovation centers could be founded where local inventors receive access to materials, mentoring, and funding opportunities. The projects could be spun into case studies that would suggest appropriate opportunities for bringing an initiative to scale, either locally or in a global market. Establish socially responsible design practice residencies within foundations that are doing community development work to inform funding. Place designers within mission-based organizations with specific, funded projects. Expand the role of social media as a democratic, participatory tool for making decisions about social impact design efforts.
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Research and establish a map of how socially responsibly designed products reach their markets, with a focus on how manufacturing is accomplished and economies of scale are met. Develop portals to publicize and cross-promote resources for social impact design.
Long-term Seed large-scale programs at universities throughout the world that train students to evaluate the impact of social design. Institute processes for long-term evaluations (as long as 30 years). Build accountability and transparency into any system of evaluation.
2. Emphasize Storytelling
The value of social impact design is not effectively communicated to the social sector. Designers need to tell the story of how design can play a significant role in creating social change. Ideas include: Short-term Compile a glossary of social impact design terminology to form a unified approach to describing work. Create an archive of case studies via a web-based knowledge hub that demonstrates the value of social impact design in terms of cost saving, efficiency, and broad social impact. Collect and share examples of the best practices of effective storytelling with the social sector via online documents or webinars. Long-term Develop a media campaign that helps the public, communities in need, and public agencies gain an understanding of what social impact design is, how it addresses critical issues, and how one may gain access to its services. Develop a means to document and share the instructive failures of social design efforts.
4. Form Intelligent Coalitions

Universities and design schools are currently an important seat for social impact design training and fieldwork, but there is additional need for dedicated social impact design programs within these and other institutions, and for greater recognition of their value. Resources for learning should not be concentrated solely in formal academic communities; they are also needed in informal teaching environments, both physical and online. Ideas include: Short-term Organize teaching workshops of social impact design within communities that lack formal educational programs where social designers are trained, and enlist the help of local design practitioners in their development. Impress on university administrators the value of social impact design research and practice in order to make it more of a vehicle for promotion and tenure. Long-term Create intelligent coalitionsor international networks organized by universitiesthat would foster the practice of social impact design through teaching and fieldwork, financial assistance through loan forgiveness, and access to resources and expertise in the launching of professional careers. Create a program for social impact designers similar to Teach for America, the organization that trains a select group of recent college graduates to be educators in underserved communities.
3. Build a Culture of Evaluation

A persistent theme of the summit was the need for better tools to demonstrate the long-term impact of design projects and initiatives, an important result of which would be a more effective allocation of resources to support such endeavors. Some suggestions: Short-term Research existing metric systems and work toward an international system of metrics that evaluates social impact design. Study what does and does not work for social impact design projects and initiatives rather than only the final results.
proposals
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Jennifer Toy, Kounkuey Design Initiative.
Tim Prestero, Design that Matters.
5. Create Alternative Funding Strategies

Often funds are not readily available or allocated to maximize positive impact. Alternatives to standard methods for supporting social impact design projects were proposed to enable innovative and ongoing support included: Short-term Maintain funding through successive iterations of a social impact design projectrather than just the initial stages which will help ensure that the project is fully functional and meets all its users needs. Invest in experimental social impact design strategies that bring higher risk but have great potential gains if they succeed. Long-term Establish a social capital venture model or platform like Kiva, the lending website that supports social entrepreneurship, which would draw in funding from around the world for investment in local inventors. Establish design impact bonds along the lines of social impact bonds (also known as pay-for-success bonds) created from programs that bring potentially money-saving designs to scale. Returns on investment would be contingent on the social benefits achieved through such designs.
38
39
V. notes
Bryan Bell, SEED Network; Katie Swenson, Enterprise Community Partners; and John Peterson, Public Architecture (left to right).
1 United Nations World Commission on Environment and

Development, Towards Sustainable Development, in Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, (Geneva: United Nations, 1987), 4158. (www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm)
for Social Change, PhD thesis (Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa, 2009).
2 For definitions of social impact design, see Ezio Manzini,

Small, Local, Open, and Connected: Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability, Journal of Design Strategies 4, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 811.
6 Michael A. Cohen, Revisiting Senegal After 40 Years, The Huffington Post, March 23, 2012. (www.huffingtonpost. com/michael-a-cohen/revisiting-senegal-after-40years_b_1375912.html) 7 Dona Schneider and David E Lilienfeld, Public Health:
the Development of a Discipline (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008).
3 Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jrgen

Randers, and William W. Behrens III, The Limits to Growth: A Report for The Club of Romes Project on the Predicament of Mankind (New York: Universe Books, 1972).
8 A PDF of the policy can be found at www.gsdma.org. 9 Mike Power, Common Sense and the City: Jaime Lerner,
Brazils Green Revolutionary, The Guardian, November 5, 2009. (www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/ nov/05/jaime-lerner-brazil-green)
4 Bryan Bell, Roberta Feldman, Sergio Palleroni, and David

Perkes, Public Interest Practices in Architecture, 2011 Latrobe Prize Progress Report submitted to The College of Fellows of The American Institute of Architects, December 31, 2011.
5 For references to ubuntu, see Heike Winschiers-Theophilus,

Nicola J. Bidwell, and Edwin Blake, Community Consensus: Design Beyond Participation, Design Issues 28, no. 3 (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012): 89100; Presidential Task Group for a Long Term Vision for Botswana, A Framework for a Long Term Vision for Botswana2016, (Gaborone: Government Printer, 2006); M. K. MRithaa, Mainstreaming Universal Design in Cape Town: FIFA 2010 World CupRelated Activities as Catalyst
10 William Drenttel and Julie Lasky, Winterhouse Symposium on Design Education and Social Change: Final Reports. (http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/feature/ winterhouse-first-symposium-on-design-education-andsocial-change-final-report/22578 and http://changeobserver. designobserver.com/feature/winterhouse-secondsymposium-on-design-education-and-social-change-finalreport/30688)
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appendix a
Thomas Fisher Professor of Architecture and Dean of the College of Design, University of Minnesota Heather Fleming CEO, Catapult Design Renee Kemp-Rotan Director of Special Projects, Office of the Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama; Cofounder, Black Design News Network Bernard Kiwia Chief of Engineering, Global Cycle Solutions Laura Kurgan Director, Spatial Information Design Lab, Columbia University Patrice Martin Co-lead + Creative Director, Ideo.org Richie Moalosi Senior Lecturer in Industrial Design, University of Botswana David Perkes Director/Architect, Gulf Coast Community Design Studio Jon Polhamus Brand Design Language Manager, GE Healthcare Global Design Tim Prestero Founder and CEO, Design that Matters Kirtee Shah Director, Ahmedabad Study Action Group
Cameron Sinclair Cofounder, Architecture for Humanity Amy Smith Founder, D-Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Jennifer Toy Cofounder, Kounkuey Design Initiative
Marc Norman Director, UPSTATE: A Center for Design, Research, and Real Estate at Syracuse University Sergio Palleroni Professor Senior Fellow, Center for Sustainable Solutions; Director, Center for Public Interest Design, Portland State University John Peterson Founder President, Public Architecture Manuel Toscano Principal, Zago LLC, and National Director for Social Engagement, Design for Good, AIGA Phil Weilerstein Executive Director, National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance
Summit Participants
In attendance at the Social Impact Design Summit on February 27, 2012, in New York were:
Afternoon Participants
John Cary Founder/Editor/Curator, PublicInterestDesign.org Lee Davis Cofounder and Chief Innovation Officer, NESsT Lou Elin Dwyer Research Analyst, Center for Technology and National Security Policy, National Defense University Dan Etheridge Assistant Director, Tulane City Center, Tulane University Sharon Haar Professor, School of Architecture, University of Illinois at Chicago Michele Kahane Professor of Professional Practice, Social Entrepreneurship, The New School Ezio Manzini Director of the Interdepartmental Centre for Research on Innovation for Sustainability, Milan Polytechnic University
Morning Participants
Mariana Amatullo Vice President, Designmatters, Art Center College of Design Kenneth Bailey Founder, Design Studio for Social Intervention Bryan Bell Founder, Social Economic Environmental Design Network; Executive Director, Design Corps Michael Cohen Director, International Affairs Program, The New School Teddy Cruz Founder, Estudio Teddy Cruz Krista Donaldson CEO, D-Rev William Drenttel Cofounder, Design Observer and Winterhouse Robert Fabricant Vice President of Creative, frog
APPENDIX A
Funding Representatives
Benjamin de la Pea Associate Director for Urban Development, The Rockefeller Foundation Sunny Fischer Executive Director, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation George Jacobsen Program Officer, Community Development, The Kresge Foundation Jessica Joseph Associate Director, Innovation, The Rockefeller Foundation
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Maurine Knighton Senior Vice President of Operations and Program Director, Arts and Culture, Nathan Cummings Foundation Judilee Reed Director, Thriving Cultures, Surdna Foundation Ellen Rudolph Consultant Regina Smith Senior Program Officer, Arts Culture, The Kresge Foundation Katie Swenson Vice President of National Design Initiatives, Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. Edwin Torres Associate Director for New York City Opportunities Fund and Innovation, The Rockefeller Foundation
Abigail Sarmac Program Officer, The Lemelson Foundation Jason Schupbach Design Director, Visual Arts Division, National Endowment for the Arts Joan Shigekawa Acting Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts Cynthia E. Smith Curator of Socially Responsible Design, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
appendix B
Participant Survey Summary Remarks

Introductory remarks by Cynthia E. Smith, CooperHewitt, National Design Museums Curator of Socially Responsible Design, given at the Social Impact Design Summit. It is a summarized analysis of summit participants responses to a survey about the status of socially responsible design sent to each participant prior to the summits convening. We have brought together leading practitioners from the public, private, and social sectorsworking within the United States and internationally. Your responses to our survey to gauge the current status of social impact design reflect a broad range of experience and perspectives, which helps us to frame the days conversation. This is evident even in the multitude of terms we use to describe this area of design: socially responsible design public interest design design for social change public design social innovation social impact design social design public service design
We asked you, Where are the gaps that hinder growth for this area of design? You responded with the following: A lack of recognition of the value of design in the social sector, which limits the demand for design services. A lack of a single, clear, and accessible language, identity, and set of standards for this area of designand a common language shared between designers and funders. No pipeline or incentives in place, and limited opportunities to build experiences in the social sector, which hinders practitioners ability to commit full-time to socially responsible design. Knowledge gaps in understanding socioeconomic and cultural differences; and the underlying causes that created the problem, which may in fact require more systemic solutions not yet prevalent in social impact design.
Planning Partners
Jamie Hand Design Specialist, Visual Arts Division, National Endowment for the Arts Jennifer Hughes Design Specialist, Visual Arts Division, National Endowment for the Arts Bill Moggridge Former Director (1943-2012), Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Caroline Payson Director of Education, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
42
These are a number of the challenges encountered that hinder the growth of socially responsible design: Educators meet resistance from universities to integrate this topic into the curriculum and their research. For students, there no clear path of study. Lack of time emerged as a challenge for many designers to sustain their efforts. Designers spend extraordinary amounts of time securing funding sources to undertake this work. The design development cycle takes time because communities are slow to engage new technologies. Measuring impact can take years. Few social sector organizations can afford to pay market rates for design services. Cultural bias is a challenge to overcome, especially when one does not share a common language, culture, or life experience.
We asked you to describe successful and sustainable organizational models that you have encountered. Here are some of your responses: Somesuch as IDEO.org and International Development Enterprisesare hybrids, where a nonprofit design firm relies on fee-for-service and philanthropic contributions; MASS Design Group works under a larger, well-funded nonprofit, Partners in Health. Design Centers/Studios, like Tulane City Center, are based in universities and engage students for earning credits or money; they have the capacity to manage long-term grants, yet they do require support by top administrators to meet their mission. Social change incubatorssuch as Ashoka, NESsT, and Echoing Greenidentify, invest in, and support individuals and collaborations between social entrepreneurs. There are numerous social, academic, research, and professional networkssuch as the DESIS (Design for Social Innovations and Sustainability) Network which works both locally and internationally. Others are volunteerbased nonprofit networks, such as Architecture for Humanity and Engineers without Borders. One successful model is based on the ubuntu concept of interconnectedness, which calls for a full engagement of the community in the development of the design at every stage.
Look to the field of public health as a way to develop the field of social impact design. Some thought that, rather than a distinct practice, it should be a specialization within existing professions. Survey respondents suggested the following actions when asked, How do we raise awareness of this profession? Professional knowledge sharing via social networks and professional associations. Practitioner-led workshops to share experience and methods. Case studies of successful models and practices that measure the effectiveness of efforts. The incorporation of the study of social design into interdisciplinary coursework, along with social design focused modules in existing design programs. The development and promotion of competitions for social impact design solutions. It was suggested by respondents that students interested in this field could take many actions to prepare themselves while they are still in school, such as: To broaden their knowledge base, they could take elective courseseven if outside of their majorin public health, international development, sociology, anthropology, history, economics, and finance. To gain more skills and experience in the field, students could intern with social design firms or volunteer with organizations like Design Corps to engage underserved communities in the United States and the Peace Corps for cultural immersion and international humanitarian aid experience. To learn and listen in the field, before speaking and designingprobably the most critical skill students can gain from working directly with communities. The final survey question, How can funders, academia, public and private sectors support this work in a systematic and sustainable way? elicited the most ideas. Here are just a few of those ideas: The seeding and incubating of start-up collaborative projects between designers and social enterprises to demonstrate the interest in social impact design. The establishment of a fund for designers engaged in socially responsible design, available for an extended period of time, to give this emergent field the financial stability it needs to demonstrate its value. The creation of an ethical protocol and an oversight board. The provision of public sector tax incentives that promote socially responsible activityand tax penalties for projects which are irresponsible.
We asked, Is socially responsible design a viable career path? Some respondents agreed that design for social impact is a viable career path when measured in terms of need, though maybe not as currently constructed. The path to becoming a financially viable career remains unclear, with few opportunities. This area of design will become more viable if demand for services increase within the social sector in the United States and the areas that are most in need in the developing world.
APPENDIX b
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Design and Social Impact

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What was the purpose of the Social Impact Design Summit?

What was the purpose of the Social Impact Design Summit?

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What models of socially responsible design were discussed?

Design and Social impact

Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

A Cross-Sectoral Agenda for Design Education, Research, and Practice