Biography

Carola Verschoor is Wunderman Thompson Amsterdam’s Strategy & Experience Design Officer. As a business designer she integrates decades of industry practice, design-driven methods and innovative approaches into participative, interactive and provocative approaches to strategy and experience design. Carola has a track record of more than 25 years working across industries, developing teams and delivering successful innovation.

At Wunderman Thompson she is on a mission to help change the narrative through the power of brands and to co-create a better future for all.
She is a much sought public speaker and thought leader on the topics of innovation, strategy, creativity, transformation and (service) design for business. Carola is the author of Change Ahead, which is recognized as a leading book on the emerging practices in the domain of business strategy, research and design. She is also one of the many co-creators of This is Service Design Doing and more recently has co-authored the Infinite Double Diamond Cards.

Carola is a believer in the power of doing when it comes to creative transformation. She has been host, mentor and even headquarter-marathonist for the Global Service Design Jams over the years.

Opening talk: Unleashing the infinte possibilities of design thinking.

Biography

Design the Right Thing & Design the Thing Right

Fred develops brands, products, packaging and service concepts. Regularly joining forces with his peers in product design, audio-visual production and

engineering, he has crafted concepts for British Airways, KLM, Lufthansa, Marriott, McDonald’s, Virgin Australia and Qatar Airways, to name a few.

Fred was active in publishing, branding and advertising in Singapore before returning to Europe in 2013 to focus on experience design and brand development for the aviation and foodservice markets. In 2021, he joined EMAKINA, where a dedicated team of experts in technology, strategy and creativity puts the user at the centre of everything they do.

Closing talk: TBD

Biography

Iva has been a jammer since 2014. She has hosted and mentored at more than seven GSJam and GOVJam editions at Barcelona, Madrid, Rome and Ghent.

As a background, she has more than 15 years of experience in technology, business, and design strategy. As an Electronics engineer, she went from building tech to selling tech as B2B Partner and business developer. Her main focus was defining business models around Wireless infrastructures and software (SaaS). For the last ten years, she has leveraged tech’s power to create and deliver meaningful experiences applying Design Thinking. As a self-trained Service Designer, she also assists companies in preparing themselves to provide concrete experiences to their users.

She is currently leading a talented multidisciplinary team of UX Designers, Service Designers, Content Designers, XD/UX researchers, and Design Strategists @Emakina Belgium, focused on designing meaningful products and services that deliver happiness.

Fun facts:

• She studied radio broadcasting as a hobby and had a talk show on a Catalan local station for three years.
• She was a LittleBits educator and ambassador, sharing her love for electronics encouraging kids to learn about technology.
• She interviewed the creators of the JAM when Emakina launched its online radio station to connect with their employers during the initial year of the pandemic. Listen to her brain-waves show episode here:

Biography

We always find a solution. 

Chaimae is like the fairytale godmother you see in one of those Disney movies. She’s there, you can always reach out to her, explain the problem and she will listen and try to find a solution. With her strong soft skills and positive mindset, she tries to give the best operational support. Since April 2021 Chaimae is very honored to have the role of DesignOps to the Creativity, Content Design, and XD team of Emakina.

She is sooo looking forward to her first Jam! *star jump in the air*

Biography

Vicky obtained a Ph.D. in Criminology from the University of Leuven in Belgium and worked as an academic researcher for over 5 years. She spent one year at Yale University in the United States as a post-doctoral researcher in the field of Criminology. In 2013, she took a position as a research expert in a market research company. Since 2018, she is active in the field of UX, Design Thinking, and Service Design. She is currently a member of the Experience Design team at Emakina Belgium, responsible for design strategy and research. She combines a passion for user research with an interest in business and digital strategy to guide organizations through the Experience Design process.

Biography

Make the right content and make that content exactly right.

Sarah helps brands answer two basic questions. What content do they need? And how do they make that content stand out from the massive flow of content users are exposed to on a daily basis? She has helped brands like Visit Qatar, KitchenAid, Walibi, D’Ieteren, Visit Brussels and more with her strategic approach to content and storytelling.

Sarah has a background in copywriting & translation, scripts and voiceovers, content strategy, user-centric content creation, editorial production and storytelling for businesses. She joined EMAKINA over a decade ago and has been a user advocate ever since.

Biography

BE CONFIDENT. BE REBELLIOUS. BE CREATIVE.

With a first degree in hotel management and a second in design thinking and innovation, Claire put’s the user needs first. She has helped define the users’ needs in different projects and works closely with her colleagues to answer those needs.

Biography

As the child of a designer/artist/poet and a part-time art teacher/full-time mum, Ellen grew up surrounded by colour, shape, aesthetics and creativity … in a world where everything was believed to be feasible, if only you set your mind to it and followed your heart.

At the age of 6, Ellen drew her first invention, a clock without hands, and instead of the newest Barbie doll, Santa brought her ‘The Art of Colour’ by Johannes Itten. No wonder she chose to study Product Design and started her career in several design agencies.

Her many interests and inexhaustible curiosity ensured that she soon broadened her horizons and gained years of experience in design, but also communication and UX, thus becoming a creative jack-of-all-trades.

One thing is certain, Ellen, aka strange cookie, always combines her passionate curiosity with creative and analytic thinking to come up with smart solutions. That’s what makes her heart beat.