move forward. continually. with purpose. and push yourself. to the top.

designathon 2023: summit

may 20, 2023 | 9am - 7pm pst | @ucla

Welcome to Summit.

It's time to purposefully rethink design that will push all of us to the top.

To Our Participants, Mentors, & Judges,

Working on Summit has been an honor and it was exceptional to see your devotion and commitments to our mission leading up to and during the event. The creativity from the participants, the passion from the mentors, and the guidance from the judges has proven the joy and commitments we have put into planning Summit. Summit's goal and motto is to move forward, to the top. Our vision was to emphasize diversity, equity, and inclusion as part of the design thinking process to challenge our community to consider the underrepresented groups that still share some of the same traits as us. We wanted our community to be there for each other and to consider what inclusion means from a design thinking standpoint. Thank you for your commitments to this vision and process. We can't wait to see what you create next.

See the Recap

About Designathon.

Designathon at UCLA is an annual beginner-friendly design competition hosted by Bruin Entrepreneurs with the goal of fostering design thinking at UCLA. Student designers and creatives from diverse background and skill levels come together to innovate and create. Students have an incredible opportunity to network with peers and professionals, attend dynamic workshops, seek guidance from expert designers and learn about buzzing opportunities in the design industry.

About Summit.

Summit is the 2023 theme for Designathon at UCLA promoting inclusivity and diversity of design. The purpose is clear: to reach the top. Design thinking helps us address problems, using innovation to contribute to our quickly developing society. By placing importance on empathy, equity, inclusivity, and diversity, we shape design to be whatever we need and dream it to be. These are our different ways to reach the top. No matter how you tackle design thinking, we’ll still meet you at the summit. 

Program Details.

Summit will take place all day (9AM – 7PM PST) on Saturday, May 20, 2023 at UCLA. At this time, we ask interested participants to submit an application. If interested in applying as a team, we ask all participants to submit an application to the website. A day after applicants are completed and e-mail invitations are sent out, participants will be able to submit their team details to us. If applying as a solo/duo, participants will have the option to choose to join another open team. After teams are chosen, individualized agendas and schedules will be posted to our intranet for participants to view ahead of Designathon.

Meet the Mentors & Judges.

Luke Miller is the UX Design Director for the National Geographic Society, and an instructor for UCLA Extension's UX program. He's worked and taught in the UX field for 13 years and considers his greatest accomplishments to be launching careers, not just products.

Luke Miller
UX Design Director, National Geographic Society

Augustina(Ao) Liu is the product designer at Wynd Technologies. She is a passionate designer and believes that design should be empowering and inclusive. With a vision to create products that can be used by people of all levels of abilities, she strives to bring accessibility and functionality to the forefront of design. The product Wynd Sentry she was working on has received the 2023 CES Innovation Awards Honoree. In addition, Augustina has also published a conference proceeding on ACM CHI Conference 2022 about exploring sound designs in auditory webpages.

Augustina Liu
Product Designer, Wynd Technologies

Vignesh is a Principal Designer at Adobe working on Adobe Express. He has a background in Computer Science and HCI. He started his design career at Adobe in 2008. He spent most of the last decade designing some of Adobe's popular business and creative tools like Acrobat and Adobe XD. He is currently focused on designing creative tools for non-creative professionals. In his spare time, he enjoys books, golf and a good whiskey!

Vignesh Madhav
Principal Designer, Adobe

Morgan Romero is a Senior UX Designer currently working at Riot Games on Teamfight Tactics, who previously worked on League of Legends: Wild Rift, which was awarded the 2021 iPhone Game of the Year. Morgan has additional experiences in the fintech and automotive industries. She is also a UCLA alumna, who actively mentors through UCLA's networking system, UCLA One!

Morgan Romero
Senior UX Designer, Riot Games

Erica is a product designer that transitioned from the field of healthcare. She is passionate about using systems thinking and scalable design to create experiences that satisfy business and user needs. She currently focuses on designing for marketplace and growth. When she's not designing she likes crafts, powerlifting and spending time with her frenchie, Jackjack.

Erica Kong
Product Designer, Uber

Meet the Team.

Nathan Lim

Director

Ashley Chen

Director

Proud Puangmaha

Marketing Strategist

Jane Mukhametkhan

Marketing Strategist

Kody Lamb

Outreach Coordinator

Buyandari Munkhgerel

Outreach Coordinator

Designathon at UCLA is proud to partner with UCLA Residential Life Learning Centers to invite students to be bold, creative, and artistic, creating an opportunity to learn from professionals from various industries and to widen networking. Together, we are building summit to be an inclusive and diverse space to make design thinking and its process equitable.

 

To build each other to the top. To the summit.