Choice, Voice, & Power: Increasing Gender Equality through Design

©Gates Archive/Cameron Karsten

Join the World Affairs Council and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center for an educator workshop that takes a closer look at how design thinking has improved economic opportunity and health for women and girls across the globe. Connect with stories that illustrate the use of design innovation to address some of the world’s most critical problems in our current special exhibit, Design with the 90% and leave with ways to apply this work in your classroom.

Evening will include a discussion addressing gender equity and poverty through the lens of design thinking.

The workshop cost is $20 and includes food, 3 FREE clock hours, and an in-depth curriculum resource guide on the topic. Validated parking is also available.

Design with the 90% was organized by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.

About the Speakers

Tracy Johnson
Senior Program Officer, Integrated Delivery, User Experience and Innovation
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Tracy Johnson a Senior Program Officer focused on user experience and innovation for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Integrated Delivery team. Tracy is responsible for creating a vision for how to best apply human-centered design across the Foundation's portfolio of grants as well as building capacity in this area. She does this through leading innovative end to end design programs addressing such issues as women’s sexual reproductive health and social vulnerability of mothers and families, as well as by working with key donor partners on the development of design tools and resources, such as designforhealth.org. Prior to joining the foundation, Tracy had over 15 years of experience in applying anthropology and design to business problems and social on behalf of Fortune 500 clients as well as within many areas of international development, notably education, human rights, violence against women and children, and trafficking in persons. Throughout her career she has lived and worked throughout Thailand, Laos, Sri Lanka, Panama, France, Spain, Italy, China, and North America. She received her PhD in social and cultural anthropology from Columbia University.

María Veronica Buch and Melody Juarez with Maya Pedal Guatemala will be joining via video conference call to personally share their work.

Maya Pedal designs, manufactures, and distributes over 20 different models of bicimaquinas (bike-machines) made from recycled bicycles in Guatemala. First designs were humanpowered agricultural machines, later expanding to include a broad range of applications, from a bomba (water pump) that supplies water to local neighborhoods to a bicilicuadora (blender) used to make shampoos. Easy to fabricate and maintain, these ingenious low-cost devices are made with a few bike parts and only require basic tools and a welder. The fully Guatemalan workshop supports micro-enterprises, energy independence, and sustainable development to improve the environment, health, productivity, and the economy of local families.

For more information about Maya Pedal visit: http://www.maya-pedal.org/.

Ryan Hauck is the Director of the Global Classroom Program at the World Affairs Council and has 25 years of experience as a classroom teacher in Upper School Social Sciences. He currently teaches at Glacier Peak High School in Snohomish. Ryan completed his master’s degree in Globalization and Educational Change from Lehigh’s Comparative & International Education Department. He brings his own real-life experiences into the classroom so that his students begin to understand the value of cross-cultural understanding and humanitarian action.

Wendy Ewbank currently teaches 7th and 8th grade at the Seattle Girls’ School, an independent girls’ middle school highlighting anti-bias education and project based learning. A past president of Washington State Council for Social Studies, she continues to serve as program coordinator for their annual conference in Chelan. Wendy has taught Social Studies methods for the University of Washington Teacher Education program at both the elementary and secondary levels. She has attended study tours with the Goethe Institut (Germany), the Washington-Hyogo Institute (Japan), and the Turkish Cultural Foundation (Turkey). She has written curriculum for the Street Law Institute and co-taught their summer Supreme Court Institute.