Don Norman is Director of the Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego. He is co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, former Vice President of Apple and former executive at Hewlett Packard. Norman serves as an IDEO Fellow, an honorary professor of Design and Innovation at Tongji University (Shanghai), and is an advisor or board member of numerous companies. At UC, San Diego, he served as chair of the Psychology Department and founder and chair of the Cognitive Science Department. At Northwestern University, he was the Breed Professor of Design. He has been Distinguished Visiting Professor of Industrial Design at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). He has honorary degrees in Psychology from the University of Padua (Italy) and in Design from the Technical University of Delft (the Netherlands) and the University of the Republic of San Marino. He received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer & Cognitive Science from the Franklin Institute (Philadelphia). He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Association for Computing Machinery, American Psychological Association, and Association for Psychological Science, Human Factors & Ergonomics Society, and the Design Research Society. He serves on the Board of Trustees at IIT's Institute of Design in Chicago. He is well known for his many books (18, translated into 23 languages), the best-known being "The Design of Everyday Things," "Emotional Design," and "Living with Complexity." He is most famous for doors that you have trouble opening: they are called "Norman Doors" (search for "Norman Doors Video": 4.5million views). He lives at www.jnd.org.

Pradyumna Vyas acquired a Masters in Industrial Design from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. In June 2010, Vyas was conferred with an Honorary Master of Arts Degree from the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, United Kingdom in recognition of his contributions to design education and design promotion. Vyas has more than 33 years of professional and teaching experience in different spheres of design and is associated with the National Institute of Design (NID) as a faculty in the Industrial Design discipline. He was Director of the NID from April 2009 to January 2019. Prior to joining NID, Vyas acquired three years overseas experience at the Kilkenny Design Centre, Republic of Ireland. In July 2011, Vyas was given the award for his outstanding contribution to design education at Asia’s Best School Award that was held at Singapore. He was elected as an ICSID (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) Executive Board Member for 2009–11. In 2009, Vyas was nominated as Member Secretary, India Design Council by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India. In July 2015, World Education Congress, 2015 conferred the award for Outstanding Contribution to Education to Mr. Vyas. In March 2016, Mr Vyas was honoured with the 'Lifetime Achievement Award – Design, 2016' at the first 'India UX Design Awards' for the contribution towards the designing community and his pioneering efforts in the field of design education and design promotion.

An alumnus of the National Institute of Design (NID), Prof. Vijai Singh Katiyar is currently Officiating Director at NID and has more than 29 years of experience in design education, research, and practice. He has served on NID’s Governing Council and is the member of institute’s Senate. He has been the Chair across various departments such as the Professional Education Programmes, Research & Publications, Integrated Design Services, Outreach Programmes, and International Programmes. In 2016, he designed and implemented India’s first practice-based PhD programme in Design at NID. He also serves on the advisory board of the National Design Business Incubator. He is the founder of the International Center for Indian Crafts (ICIC) at NID. He has helped state governments in setting up new design institutions and some of the most notable ones include the U.P. Institute of Design, Lucknow and the Kerala State Institute of Design, Kollam. He teaches Textile Design (Woven fabric Design, Jacquard, and Fabric Structure), Crafts Design and Documentation, Design Thinking, Design Process, System Design, and Design Development Projects. He works across the textiles, crafts, and educational sectors contributing to innovation, strategy, training, and institution building. He has helped organisations and businesses with creative solutions for strategies, products, and branding through design. He serves widely on committees, boards, and international juries. He has been awarded the Visiting Research Fellowship by the University of New South Wales, Sydney. His publications include papers, presentations and two major books—Design Education: Tradition and Modernity and Indian Saris: Traditions-Perspectives- Design.

Srini has more than 25 years of professional experience in creative design; user experience design; telecom and wireless product design and development; company formation and venture capital raising; global marketing and sales management; manufacturing and operations. He is a member of various professional bodies, namely WiMAX, WDC2014, Innovations Judge, CES 2012, Usability Panel Member, IEEE, CES 2013.

Currently Srini is the President and CEO of LUMIUM, Inc., a creative design company that designs and delivers complete solutions in consumer electronics, smart devices, medical devices, housewares, and UE design for global clients. He has established business partnerships in many parts of the world using his extensive global network of contacts.

Alpay is Industrial Design Department Chair at Ozyegin University (OzU) in Istanbul, Turkey. After studying industrial design at Middle East Technical University (METU), he completed his PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK. Previously he worked at Hacettepe University and Istanbul Technical University (ITU) where he also served as Chair of the Industrial Design Department from 2006 until 2013. A member of the Design Research Society (DRS), Alpay was also conferred with "Fellowship of DRS" in 2006.

His areas of expertise include design management and strategy, design policy, history, and education in emerging economies. His work has appeared in journals such as Design Issues, Journal of Design History, and Asian Design Journal.

Prof. Mugendi K. M’Rithaa is an industrial designer, educator and researcher at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. He studied in Kenya, the USA, India and South Africa and holds postgraduate qualifications in Industrial Design and Higher Education, as well as a doctorate in Universal Design. He is widely traveled and has taught in Kenya, Botswana, South Africa and Sweden and is passionate about various expressions of socially conscious (and responsible) design, including: Designerly Strategies for Mitigating Climate Change; Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability; Distributed Renewable Energy; Indigenous Knowledge Systems; Participatory Design; and Universal Design.

Mugendi has a special interest in the pivotal role of design thinking in advancing the developmental agenda primarily on the African continent. He is associated with a number of international networks focusing on design within industrially developing (or majority world) contexts. Mugendi is also Africa’s first President of the World Design Organization™, formerly known as the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design. Much of his work focuses on the importance of WDO in supporting the aspirations of younger designers worldwide.

Thomas specializes in product development and design for extreme and minimal environments. His interest in small-scale living spaces grew out of his work in New York on space station interiors and led to doctoral studies at the University of Tokyo on the topic of housing and urban density. For almost a decade he recorded imagery and data on how historical minimalist design philosophy can still be seen embedded in a range of contemporary approaches to lifestyle design, living environments, and the products that bring meaning to daily experience. He became involved in hospital patient room design after joining the Global University Programs in Healthcare Architecture (GUPHA).

He holds a Bachelor of Industrial Design from Carleton University, a M.Sc. in Communications Design from Pratt Institute in New York (funded by Design Canada Scholarships for Design Excellence provided by the Canadian Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Commerce), and a Ph.D. in Architectural Planning from the University of Tokyo (funded by Japanese Ministry of Education (Monbusho) Research Scholarship).