Meet the jury of the 2020 Innovation by Design Awards
Welcome to the 2020 Innovation by Design Awards, the world’s most prestigious competition honoring the intersection of design and business. We’ve recruited an all-star cast of designers, executives, and thought leaders to judge the awards. Meet them below, and stay tuned as we add even more judges before the competition’s deadline in May.
Hartmut Esslinger
Hartmut Esslinger was the first designer to bring human-driven, high-touch design to the world of complex hardware and software technology. He founded frog design in his native Germany in 1969 and expanded it to the United States in 1982—and then with his wife Patricia Roller to all five continents. He also is a teacher at the DeTao Design School in Shanghai and cofounder of the Esslinger Group, an innovative product company in Shenzhen. In 2017, he received the only once awarded World Design Medal by the World Design Organisation.
Elijah Meeks
Elijah Meeks is a data visualization engineer at Apple and the executive director of the Data Visualization Society and has written articles, essays and technical books about data visualization as well as developed data visualization libraries like Semiotic and modules such as the Interact Data Explorer. His practice has included creating analytical applications at companies like Netflix and Apple as well as work at Stanford developing interactive scholarly works in the digital humanities. He’s most interested in information and metric design as it applies to advancing organizational data literacy.
Dantley Davis
Dantley Davis leads design and research at Twitter. Prior to joining Twitter, Dantley was at Facebook where he led product design for Stories, News Feed, and Video. He spent seven years at Netflix, where he was responsible for design and product strategy for television and mobile experiences. Dantley received his undergrad degree and MBA from the University of San Francisco.
August de los Reyes
August de los Reyes works as chief design officer at Varo where he and his team design what will soon be America’s first digital national bank. Prior to Varo, August led teams at Google and Microsoft, where his work at Xbox helped break ground for Inclusive Design in the digital arena. His favorite pastry is the kouign amann for its buttery goodness and difficulty to spell.
Ji Lee
Ji Lee is a New York-based designer born in Korea and raised in Brazil. He is a creative director at Facebook Creative Shop. Named as one of the 50 most important designers in America by Fast Company, Ji’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Time magazine, Wired, BBC, The Guardian, the Smithsonian, and the MoMA store, among others.
Vanessa Cho
Vanessa Cho is a design partner at GV. A product design leader, she builds products for consumer and enterprise customers across the globe. She has started and grown design teams in industries ranging from cloud and productivity software to e-commerce and hardware. Prior to joining GV, Vanessa led a team of 180 at Google as head of UX for GSuite. She delivered communication and collaboration experiences for products like Gmail, Hangouts, Calendar, and Drive. Previously, Vanessa was head of UX at GoPro and Walmart Labs where she scaled their product design and research teams.
Rinat Aruh
Rinat Aruh is the cofounder and CEO of Aruliden, an award-winning global design agency formed in 2006. Together with the team at Aruliden, Rinat works with Fortune 100 companies as well as startups to build purpose-driven brands, products, and experiences that matter, from concept to concrete, physical to digital, zero to launch. A sample of clients include Glossier, Google, WHOOP, Backdrop, and Verizon.
Alain Sylvian
Alain is the founder and CEO of Sylvain Labs, a strategy and design consultancy that helps companies seize the reality and potential of their business, products, and brands. Clients include Google, American Express, Airbnb, Spotify, BlackRock, Samsung, Pepsico, Diageo, Hilton, AB InBev, IKEA, GM, Sonos, the NBA, and others. Founded in 2010, the company is headquartered in NYC, with offices in Amsterdam and Richmond, VA, and is a Certified B-Corporation. In addition, Alain is an active investor and partner in several for-profit and nonprofit ventures.