Bridging Spaces for Learning: Ben Shapiro’s TEDx Talk

DFA Vanderbilt’s co-founder Ben Shapiro gives a TEDx Talk at Furman University. With the theme of Redesigning Education,this conference describes itself as, “Redesigning Education is no small task. Since the ways that we share ideas, process information and create knowledge are changing every day, the places and spaces where we teach and learn must change, too. Let’s rethink how we think about thinking. Let’s relearn how we learn about learning. Let’s redesign our schools, our classrooms, our lectures and our diplomas to prepare learners for success in this age of constant change.”

DFA Vanderbilt Wrap-Up 2012-2013

Greetings Everyone!!

DFA Vanderbilt is excited to provide updates on our development, projects, event highlights, and accomplishments of a highly successful inaugural year!  What began last year as a few students passionate about bringing design to a campus without a traditional design school has developed into a core studio of 20 undergraduate and graduate students and a ‘skills team’ of many other students from across Vanderbilt.  Moreover, faculty mentors from across the University including from Vanderbilt’s schools of engineering, education, business and medicine have demonstrated strong support for our passion and vision while our studio projects have allowed us to meet, connect and work with multiple community partners.

DFA NU’s GroupWalk on ABC!

“College campus safety is a key issue for local students and their parents. Now, colleges and universities are coming up with high tech solutions, and on one Chicago area campus, students are providing an innovative answer themselves. There’s safety in numbers, they say, but here Northwestern University, some students realized their peers were not heeding that advice. “Five of the past six crime alerts were people walking alone,” said Cassie Coravos, NU student.”  Check out GroupWalks full story here and check-out their video feature below!

DFA Yale Wrap-Up 2012-2013

Greetings from New Haven! It’s been a wild year here at DFA Yale: we’ve grown from five members to thirty, gotten five projects off the ground, and hosted a crazy-awesome weekend of DFA fun at the East Coast Meet-Up.

This fall, we were lucky enough to host fellow DFA rockstars from RISD/Brown, Cornell, Barnard/Columbia and Virginia Tech for the East Coast Meet-Up! Projects were shared, friendships were formed, and mockup-tionary was played for three straight days. It was an incredible experience to see this sprawling, abstract DFA network turn into a real, living community where we can share ideas and get to know each other. Every studio has a different take on the design process, and hearing it reinterpreted in the context of each school changed how many of us look at design.

Extreme by Design

We had the pleasure of interviewing Ralph King, the inspiring and talented filmmaker of Extreme by Design, a documentary film. Design for America has had the exclusive opportunity to pre-screen the film at its studios around the country. The film itself focuses on a team of college students from the Stanford design school and their experiences as they engage in the process of designing products that address huge issues for the world’s poor. Watch the trailer here!