Growing Together: Cultivating Empathy and Mutual Benefit in International, Intercultural, and Intergenerational Co-Design
Session Description
What does it take to grow design partnerships that span cultural, geographic, and generational divides and last longer than a single engagement? This session shares stories and strategies from a long-term design project where university students and community partners co-design solutions built on mutual benefit and long-term collaboration. We will look at how building empathy through immersion, listening, and reciprocal learning shifts design from delivering answers to tending relationships. Drawing on several ways to engage diverse project partners before, during, and after fieldwork, this session offers practical tools for cultivating diverse design relationships that grow stronger, and wiser, over time.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ Wendy Angst
Wendy Angst is a professor at the University of Notre Dame involved in the Powerful Means initiative, which explores how design can support meaningful change. Her work focuses on applying design approaches to complex challenges and helping individuals and communities imagine new possibilities for the future.