Transformative Creators Putting Dignity in Design

Progress through power of diversity in design.

Design demands dignity. For the better part of a decade, SCADpro has fostered intentional design and an inclusive atmosphere, instrumental in accelerating diverse ideas. We sit at the heart of the university, cultivating the world’s next generation of creative leaders in business, by tackling some of industry’s most vexing challenges. It’s our responsibility to connect this generation with current creative business leaders to realize what’s next.

In any given week, multiple results-oriented creative partnerships are at work within our innovation studio. Students from more than 40 design majors and over 100 countries, unlock key insights and create impactful results for the world’s leading brands. SCADpro students learn to push past the most obvious “good” ideas to create bolder, unexpected, and more impactful experiences. While diverse in many ways, we know we can do more.

What’s Next

SCADpro is committed to cultivating the world’s largest and most active, inclusive, diverse, and impactful community of creative leaders in business. We’re accelerating our efforts to break down the barriers preventing the underestimated from economic opportunity, starting with local and national partnerships. Beginning this summer, we will:

• Inculcate dignity in design across the university and industry, starting with a focus on the next generation of creative leaders
• Work with our partners to expand black youth participation in all 48-hour challenges with existing students and alumni
• Develop crucial skills and an entrepreneurial mindset through a series of immersive experiences
• Establish pathways for our future creatives business leaders to enter and excel across industries

It will take a coalition to make the necessary gains. SCAD alum Mitzi Okou and Garrett Albury launched Where are the Black Designers?, an initiative which aims to give a platform to creatives of color. In a recent Fast Company article, Mitzi said: “We’re really hoping that after this webinar people understand this is not a moment. This is a movement, and we all want to carry this through to the end so we don’t have to ask this rhetorical question ever again — and so we can build a community of people that want to see a brighter future in terms of diversity and representation in the creative and tech space.”

SCADpro Alliances bring together multiple partners across an industry value chain of stakeholders, leveraging our 10-week sprint approach to design solutions for the good of all.

This year the SCADpro Alliance initiatives include exploring working from home, schooling from home, wellness, the last-mile, food, and housing, because most, if not all, solutions require coordination and integration across the value chain. Having multiple, complementary partners, such as United Healthcare Group, Philips, IBM, HP, Microsoft, and others, involved in Alliances illuminates their respective requirements that solutions must ultimately satisfy, increasing feasibility, viability, and therefore sustainability in execution. All of these Alliances will prove beneficial to the cities we call home.

There is much to be done collectively. In order to overcome injustice, design demands diversity — and dignity.