Surya Vanka joins DxD Advisory Council

Surya Vanka is a Founder, Designer, Educator, Innovator, and Activist committed to driving equity and inclusion within and across the design profession. His Design Swarms are tackling the big questions in design:  How do we operationalize Inclusive Design in enterprise? How can we drive an ethos of radical inclusivity? Is Design an instrument of Inclusion or Exclusion?  

Surya's agency, Authentic Design, is committed to unleashing the design thinker in every organization and individual to help them become value creators.

DxD is excited to have Surya, his passion and dedication, helping to guide the coalition in creating a new design ecosytem fully representative of the rich diversity of all of us. Welcome Surya!

More about Surya:

Surya Vanka is the founder of Authentic Design. He was previously director of user experience at Microsoft, a tenured design professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and fellow at the Center for Advanced Study.

Surya created the Design Swarms platform which is used in business, non-profit, and education worldwide. His clients include Amazon, Amgen, Autodesk, Lilly, Microsoft, REI, and T-Mobile. He is president emeritus of the Seattle Design Festival, and has chaired major conferences like the IDSA 50th anniversary conference, Interaction Week, and DMI international conference. He serves on advisory boards and juries such as Singapore Design Mark and Cradle to Cradle Challenge. 

Surya won The Ohio State University Distinguished Design Alumnus Award, Microsoft Engineering Best Practice Award twice, Accessibility Achievement Award, and top design speaker awards three times. His work is featured in forums like TEDx, Form, I.D., Design Council, WIRED, Interactions, BBC, and NPR. Surya authored two books and taught design on every continent but Antarctica.