Designing for Diversity, our International Online Residency Experience (IORE) in partnership with ENSCI Les Ateliers (Paris, France) brought together 15 emerging designers for a five-day intensive virtual workshop investigating a new role for designers as cultural connectors. Led by faculty members Job Rutgers (OCAD U) and Sarngsan Na Soontorn (ENSCI-Les Ateliers), students collaborated to design and ‘embroider’ functional, cultural, emotional experiences that can connect different cultural threads into meaningful, respectful and mutually beneficial ways. Participants joined this collaborative learning program from France, Canada, India, Germany and El Salvador, broadening their global perspectives while exploring interaction design, service design, product design and spatial design.

Students were encouraged to discuss designerly solutions to support cultural diversity, sourcing from their own experiences and participation from international guest speakers, Stéphanie Nann, Wendy Gold, Naya Choi, Mo Ling Chiu and Xavier Figuerola. The participants shared their integrative design results to the speaker panel, while our OCAD U International team will create a virtual hub of the recorded sessions and works for further dissemination. we are looking forward to this being an annual initiative, and hope for an optional travel component to be integrated into the 2022 program.