Design is one of the most powerful tools we have for transforming individuals, organizations, and society at large. This was the inspiration for the panel SYPartners hosted as part of San Francisco Design Week this year.

With Managing Creative Director Rie Nørregaard as our moderator, we brought together a diverse group of guest speakers—each representing a different facet of design, but all sharing an aspiration for using design to create positive impact in the world.

Thank you to our guests for joining us and leaving us with some profound ideas to think about:

Kirk Bergstrom, Vice Chair of Buckminster Fuller Institute.

Channeling Buckminster Fuller, how big can we think? How can we design so that humans, technology, and nature can live together?

Emily English, Director of Built Positive at Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute.

Think beyond the “first use”: What’s the “next use” of what you’re creating? How can we transform the pattern of take/make/waste to a circular, sustainable one?

Kat Holmes, Founder of KATA.

We must constantly remind ourselves of the human-to-human interactions at the core of any experience. How might we use design to turn barriers to those interactions into bridges?

Kareem Collie, Teaching Fellow and Lecturer at the Stanford d.School.

As a society, we’re in a moment of synthesis, tension, and ambiguity. How might we use design as a communication tool to make sense of the moment and break down barriers?