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San Jose State's Campus The MLK Jr Library AKA San Jose Public Library Inside the library   San Jose State's Campus The Student Union building The Barrett Ballroom Inside the Student Union Join the dialogue in San Jose May 6 - 7 at the 2011 IDSA Western Conference: SOCIAL IMPACT!     Regular registration ends THIS FRIDAY April 22 at midnight EST.  Don't pay late fees! REGISTER TODAY .    

David Kaisel   has worked for 25 years integrating design, business strategy, user research and global health. Pursuing design as a tool to help people lead healthier lives, his design career progressed from office seating in Italy to client management in Silicon Valley to designing morgues, emergency housing and malaria treatment programs in Angola, Colombia and Brazil. Four years coordinating projects for Doctors Without Borders confirmed his interest in design for global health. Exploring how design impacts sustained adoption of health interventions, he advises clients such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and PATH on user research design and product innovation for household water treatment and community sanitation. As a research director at the Institute for the Future, he developed strategic forecasts of trends in the global health economy for Fortune 100 clients. His past work includes research on biomass stove test protocols and standards for the Shell Foundation, ...

Kevin Starr is the managing director of the Mulago Foundation. He directs the  Foundation and the Rainer Arnhold Fellows Program. Kevin had a perfectly good career in medicine when he stumbled into philanthropy in 1994. His friend and mentor Rainer Arnhold died suddenly when they were working together in Bolivia, and the Arnhold family asked Starr to help carry on Rainer's work through the Mulago Foundation.  Kevin spent the next decade working with projects from Afghanistan to Zambia, trying to figure out what makes for real impact at big scale. At the request of the board, he established the Rainer Arnhold Fellows Program in 2003 to apply Mulago's principles and tools to help social entrepreneurs turn good ideas into lasting change at scale. Kevin went through medical school and residency at University California San Francisco and has lived in San Francisco ever since. He teaches and mentors fellows in other programs for social entrepreneurs and still practices medicine p...

The IDSA Western District Conference has 2 new amazing additions to the line up: Ryan Duke of Project H and Heather Fleming of Catapult Design ! Ryan Duke leads the San Francisco team of Project H Design working on socially-oriented design initiatives providing creative capital to those with limited access. As a project leader, he has led hundreds of volunteers, organized in small groups based on skill and commitment, through numerous projects that work to create impact in local communities.  Launching the first city-based group, Ryan has helped Project H define processes and establish strategies for effective project implementation as Project H develops within the evolving world of social design. Heather Fleming, Founder | Chief Executive Officer, Catapult Design Heather is a designer, an engineer, and an entrepreneur motivated by social inequality. In 2005, she helped found and then led a volunteer group of engineers and designers focused on humanitarian design projec...

Socially responsible design can make positive changes within a community, and it can be personally rewarding to a designer.  But, can doing socially responsible design be financially sustainable?  This conference will offer success stories from designers and organizations that are able to do good and do well. It will address questions such as: How can you target non-profit organizations as potential clients?  How can social design work be billable, not just pro-bono? Is there fortune at the bottom of the pyramid? Or is it a money pit? How can I apply social design to my career? What opportunities are there for designers to get involved in projects within their local communities?    This is the question that we will address at the IDSA Western District Conference in San Jose, CA, May 6th and 7th.  Speakers are being selected now, so if you have suggestions, now's the time to let me know! Registration is open.  Register early and take advantag...

Being the new IDSA Western District VP I get the opportunity to plan the next District Conference!  While things are still in the early planning stages, I can tell you a few things that we do know: Location: San Jose State University, San Jose, CA Date: May 6th and 7th, 2011 Here's some more information about the location from the IDSA website: Why San Jose? It's the hub of Silicon Valley! San Jose with its large successful design and business communities acts as the capitol of this high technology center.  Poised at the center of today's tech world, this area runs our fast-changing technology industry and offers the perfect set of ingredients for a top-notch IDSA District Conference with exceptional opportunities for networking and career advancement. Whether you're a student, a young professional just starting out, a seasoned professional working in a consultancy or a corporate design department, San Jose has someone you'll want to meet! It'...