For tech companies, investing in good design is not an option. It's a non-negotiable requirement. But what does this mean for professionals in tech? We've pulled together a panel of leading designers who've worked in startups, tech juggernauts, design firms, independent consultancy, venture capital, and everything in between to discuss the challenges and opportunities. Join us to learn about design's evolving role in tech over the years, how top designers have navigated their careers, and what you need to know to foster great design in your workplace.

Design in Tech Panel

Wednesday, April 29th
6:30 pm - Food, Drinks & Networking
7:00 pm - Design in Tech panel

LinkedIn SF R&D Office
505 Howard St.
San Francisco, 94110

Featured Speakers
Ben Blumenfeld
Designer Fund

Previously, Ben was a design lead at Facebook for over 5 years where he helped build products for nearly a billion people and grow Facebook’s world-class design team. He was also the design director at Varien which he helped build into one of the world’s leading e-commerce firms and a designer at CBS where he designed many of their prime time show web experiences.

Jason Chua
Google

Jason heads up retail and consumer-facing design efforts for Project Ara, a Google effort to create a modular smartphone platform. In this role, he manages a diverse collection of teams ranging from environment design, to consumer research to user interface design. Prior to Google, Jason spent the better part of two years on the road, leading the MAKEwithMOTO and SparkTruck maker-education road trips across the country. He now prefers to fly

Kim Lenox
LinkedIn

Kim is a Senior Design Manager at LinkedIn, leading the product design teams in SF. She recently retired from IxDA’s Board of Directors where in 4 short years she oversaw the Local Chapters double in size to over 160 worldwide. Back in 2006, she co-founded IxDA-SF and was most recently a juror for IxDA's 2015 Interaction Awards.

She has also led the design of product experiences for technology companies including Samsung, Palm/HP and at design consultancies including LUNAR and Adaptive Path. She was the Software Design Director for the controversial Palm/HP TouchPad and one of her previous clients has an active kickstarter project for a private social network device. She survived the dot-com boom/bust wearing many hats including producer, product manager, interaction designer and developer for CD-Roms, websites and interactiveTV.

Ivan Zhao
Notion

Founder of Notion. Previously he worked at Inkling, and designed their cloud-based publishing platform, which is now used by most of the world’s largest publishers. If not in tech, probably would be doing digital art, photography, or maybe fashion design.

Andreas Braendhaugen
Lever

Andreas is a product designer based in San Francisco. Working in a diverse set of industries, he’s designed software that’s won awards at IXDA, as well as a Webby, and an Apple design award. Currently, he’s the lead designer of Lever, a modern recruiting tool used by companies like Lyft, GitHub, and Box, and other fast-growing companies in over 50 countries. He received his MFA degree in product design from Stanford University, and his BA from the University of Oslo.

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