Good job Find out what an MFA degree in social design will get you. DSI Design for Social Innovation
Graduates of DSI are working in every kind of organization and industry, in every type of job, using social design to solve business and society s complex challenges. That was our vision when we launched the program six years ago. Here are a few of the stories. You belong here.
Sebastian Barrera Lead Research and Design, Latin America, Bankable Frontier Associates Ending poverty in his home country of Colombia was Sebastian s passion. He had seen it first hand. It took effort to get to graduate school in New York, but he worked assiduously, winning scholarships from his government and working all through school. Through the program, Sebastian got an internship at the Rockefeller Foundation that was extended because he is deep and quiet and smart. After graduation, he went to work at Dalberg s Design Impact Group, traveling around the world, working on issues of health and financial inclusion. Today, Sebastian is realizing his dream of helping the people of Colombia, using what he s learned to teach big banks how to design services for poor people that will help them become part of the Colombian economy. If you are introverted, quiet and smart, you belong here.
Sara Cornish Marketing Manager, Minecraft Education, Microsoft In addition to being an Ultimate Frisbee player when she came to DSI, Sara had experience in marketing. She is an organizer and an extrovert. She began by organizing her cohort s activities, then moved on to an internship while in school with the UN Global Pulse, the UN s project to use big data for good. While she was there, she organized global events with the smartest data scientists in the world and watched them hack intractable problems. Then she joined the organization that Asi Burak (DSI faculty) was running, Games for Change. There she organized an event teaching school children to design games for social impact. She facilitated an event with some people from Microsoft, and the next thing she knew, she got a job offer to move to Seattle. Sara will now be helping to launch a new program to transform education and make it more student-led. If you are an extrovert who loves to organize, you belong here.
Josh Treuhaft Senior Experience Strategist, R/GA Portland Compost was what Josh wanted to talk about when he showed up at DSI. He was a product designer who wanted to take on the problem of food waste, an enormous contributor to green house gasses and climate change. He never let go of his conviction that something should be done. He got a job at the international engineering firm Arup, but kept trying to get people to Eat Everything and not throw food away. His thesis project became Salvage Supperclub, a pop-up restaurant serving elegant dinners made from food diverted from land fills and served in a dumpster. It was a smash. He was written up in Forbes, Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, and featured in a movie made by Discovery. He s hosted Salvage Supperclubs from New York to California to Japan. And he just moved back to Portland, Oregon, to take a job with RGA. If you are overwhelmingly committed to an issue and want to know What To Do About It That Will Really Matter, you belong here.
Gabriela Reygadas Head of Social Innovation, Cirklo A graphic designer and Fulbright scholar. Gabriela Reygadas came from a family that lead nonprofits in Mexico City and wanted to return there to do the same. She s back now, working for a strategic consultancy, building out a social practice for them. She was the seventh employee and now there are seventeen. She works with nonprofits and indigenous people helping them become sustainable, and she works with Mayan coffee and honey coops in Chiapas to break their dependency on charity by helping them design viable business models. She is changing the fortunes of the people and issues she cares about. If you want a career helping other people succeed, you belong here.
Bruno Silva Head of Design and Product Development, Arnhold Institute for Global Health Bruno was an interaction designer when he came to DSI, working at a job that bored him. He stuck it out until he finished school, then connected with a new job through the program. Bruno hates boundaries. In his job at the Mt. Sinai Medical Network, Bruno has already broken all the boundaries of his job description. He is working on a global mapping project using big data to improve global health, and teaching social design to the doctors in the medical school there. If you want to tear down boundaries and discover yourself, you belong here.
Tanya Bhandari Design Lead, UNICEF Innovation One of the first things Tanya made clear in her first week of graduate school is that she didn t like to speak in front of people. Good luck with that, we said. She is now working with labs in many country offices, designing across cultures and languages, creating tools that streamline deployment. She speaks to all kinds of groups now, in all kinds of places, working to help children during the Ebola crisis, in Liberia the Nepal earthquake, developing youth engagement tools for Uganda. If you are a shy person with a star inside, you belong here.
Social Design is the creation of new social conditions, in cities, corporate cultures or communities, resulting in increased creativity, equity, social justice, greater resilience, and healthy connection to nature. DSI is a two-year program that takes commitment and rigor. It s the first MFA of its kind, in the heart of New York City. We offer a unique, experience-based curriculum that builds agency and capacity for design leadership. Our students have come from twenty-seven countries so far and our faculty and courses are equally diverse. You ll find more information about what our other alums are doing, about the curriculum, the kinds of projects you ll learn to do and the practice you will master on our website. Whatever you want to be, or take on, whether you re an introvert or an extrovert, committed to a cause or generally frustrated with work that doesn t matter, you belong here. Applications are Open for Fall 2018 Apply. DSI. dsi.sva.edu