Our panel of esteemed advisors met with Finalists over a three day workshop in Aspen, Colorado in June 2009 to provide feedback, help refine presentations and develop business plans. Advisors will continue working with Finalists individually leading up to final presentations before a group of social investors, businesses and venture capitalists in preparation for a collaborative workshop in connection with the INDEX: Award 2009 in Copenhagen in August 2009.

Motivated by a desire to make people’s lives easier and safer, Deborah Adler designed a comprehensive system for packaging prescription medicine as her thesis project at the School of Visual Arts, where she received an MFA in design. The result—a completely reinvented pharmacy experience. She brought this innovation to Target, and together they developed the ClearRx system. Adler continues to deliver new directions in products, packaging, labeling, identity and information systems through her multidisciplinary design studio, Deborah Adler LLC. There she pioneers design solutions for clients such as Target, Johnson and Johnson, and Medline in addition to developing her own projects. Always at the heart of her work is the belief that design can change people’s behavior.

Prior to forming her firm in 2007, Adler was a senior designer for Milton Glaser for five years. Her work is in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and has been shown at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, as part of the National Design Triennial and in the solo exhibition “From Master’s Thesis to Medicine Cabinet.”

 

Brian Collins is the founder of COLLINS:, an innovation-led firm dedicated to inventing branded experiences that shape both companies and people for the better. From 1998 to 2007 he led the Brand Integration Group (BIG) at Ogilvy & Mather; his team launched the Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty” in North America, receiving the Media Image Award from the National Organization for Women (NOW). Collins has been a design consultant to Coca-Cola, Mattel, American Express, CNN, Levi Strauss & Co., Kodak, Amazon.com and Nobel Laureate Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, BusinessWeek and Fast Company, which named him an American Master of Design in 2005. He founded “Designism: Design for Social Change,” an annual forum to inspire young creative people to take active roles in social causes. In 1996 he produced The Ecology of Design, a handbook on environmental design thinking published by AIGA. Collins also teaches in the School of Visual Arts’ graduate program in design and is a Distinguished Alumna of the Massachusetts College of Art. He received an Honorary Doctorate from the Art Center College of Design in 2008.

 

Gary M. Cook is the managing director of Cook & Company, where he focuses on creating organizational effectiveness around strategic objectives, executive coaching and development of CEOs and senior leadership teams, and organizational reputation. Cook has held ownership and/or CEO/COO positions in numerous industry settings. He has founded, turned around and managed a variety of companies.

A former McKinsey consultant, Cook graduated from Wesleyan University and the Harvard Law School. He was a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Commerce and the former Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and served as vice-chair of the OECD Industry Committee in Paris. Cook is president of Vineyard Enterprises LLC, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a trustee of the Social Sciences Foundation of the Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, and a director of the Education Credit Management Corporation. His forthcoming book, Consilience Leadership: How Innovative Ideas from Economics, Science and Psychology are Creating Breakthroughs in Managing Organizations will be released in summer 2009.

 

Dr. Chris H. Luebkeman refuses to be categorized. He has constantly, and consistently, occupied the ‘spaces between’ professions. He utilizes his enthusiastic belief in our Zeitgeist in his current position as Director for Global Foresight and Innovation at the Arup Foresight, Innovation & Incubation headquarters in London.

Since 2003, Luebkeman and his team at Arup have conceptualized and facilitated more than 60 workshops worldwide to explore the potential impact of leading drivers of change on the future of business. By assessing emerging trends and technologies, the workshops have informed more than 4,000 participants, many of whom have contributed to challenging the official futures and how they relate to different areas of business, including the retail and hospitality sectors. Building upon insights gained from these events, Luebkeman and his team have created a holistic body of knowledge that aims to inspire the future of business and advance the development of a sustainably built environment.

Luebkeman was listed as one of the 10 futurist speculators and shapers “who will change the way we live” in Wallpaper* (July/August 2002). As an educator, he has taught in the architecture departments at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), in Zurich; the University of Oregon; the Chinese University of Hong Kong; and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

 

Fred Murrell is the chair of design and interactive media at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and is a pioneer in advanced design management practices in the United States. Murrell is well known for his previous work as design director at Sapient, Texas Instruments, Corning and Tenet Healthcare, where he created information design environments and user-centered design programs, managing internal design teams that worked closely with design consultants like Doblin Group, IDEO and Meta Design, producing integrated communications programs, user interactions and product experiences.

Murrell is currently a member of the executive board for Cumulus—the International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and New Media—and has served on the AIGA national board of directors, the national board of the American Center for Design, the advisory board of the Design Management Institute (DMI) and the AIGA National Experience Design steering committee. He was also the first president for the AIGA Upstate New York chapter, in Rochester. Murrell has lectured at the IIID (International Institute for Information Design), in Austria; UIAH (University of Art & Design Helsinki); the AIGA Design Conference in Seattle; the AIGA Business and Design Conference in New York City; the DMI Corporate Identity Conference, Montreal; and at the Rochester Institute of Technology.