```cv
youtube
{"url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzKnvX3KdJ0","width":200,"height":113,"thumbnail":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NzKnvX3KdJ0/hqdefault.jpg"}
```

```cv
youtube
{"url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMoacLS0At0","width":200,"height":113,"thumbnail":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dMoacLS0At0/hqdefault.jpg"}
```

```cv
youtube
{"url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7ClP-jrB9g","width":200,"height":113,"thumbnail":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/I7ClP-jrB9g/hqdefault.jpg"}
```

```cv
youtube
{"url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g54wxj8uM34","width":200,"height":113,"thumbnail":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/g54wxj8uM34/hqdefault.jpg"}
```

```cv
youtube
{"url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtFoTY8sISU","width":200,"height":113,"thumbnail":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mtFoTY8sISU/hqdefault.jpg"}
```

Voice and Ukulele

Service Design & Storytelling

Yes, Design Thinking Is Bullshit…And We Should Promote It Anyway

Design Thinking is indeed a buzzword, and it’s also a useful starting point for deeper understanding

Invest in Design Education to Invest in Democracy

Designing Public Services for a Higher Purpose

Binary Borders, Adjacent Issue 4

YOU ARE (CHECK ONE): ☐ STATELESS / ☐ A LIAR
Our categories of identity are increasingly hard-coded in menus and checklists. Must we accept a world of this or that, with no space for in-between or none of the above?

Is Design Thinking Conservative?

Let's blame the practitioners, not the tools. My response to NYU professor Natasha Iskander's article in the September 2018 issue of Harvard Business Review, wherein she argues that design thinking is "fundamentally conservative and preserves the status quo."

What's Strategy Got to Do With It?

Interview with David Carroll, Big Data Big Design

Helen Armstrong reprinted an excerpt of my AIGA Interview with David Carroll in her book, Big Data, Big Design. David Carroll is an Associate Professor of media design at The Parsons School of Design and was featured in the Netflix film The Great Hack.

Rebrand Your ‘Hood for Good

How Human Creativity Will Win The War Against Robots

Freedom vs. Security: The Struggle for Balance (Sourcebook on Contemporary Controversies)

A political debate sourcebook edited by Nicholas DiBiase and Lee-Sean Huang

4 Lessons From The Social Innovation Hotbed Of Brazil

#WeWashing: When "Sharing" Is Renting and "Community" Is a Commodity

Based on terms like whitewashing and greenwashing, WeWashing is when corporations, brands, and other groups use "sharing" and "community" to describe what are essentially capitalist commercial transactions.

"What Is That In Your Lunchbox?"

Interview for A Career is a Promise by Robin Landa

Author Robin Landa included an interview with me in her book, [A Career is a Promise: Finding Purpose, Success, and Fulfillment](https://amzn.to/4bNN5KH)

Catalyst FP7 Final Report: Harnessing the Power of Collective Intelligence: Communities & Technologies

Contributors: Marta Arniani, Alberto Cottica, Anna De Liddo, Lee-Sean Huang, Marc-Antoine Parent, Rosa Strube, Yannis Treffot

Designing for change, Isamu Noguchi, and embracing the "in-between"

In this commissioned article for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2021, I explore Japanese American artist Isamu Noguchi’s story to search for lessons on how to navigate working within harmful systems. Illustrations by Neethi and Asahi Nagata.

Wisdom Hackers: The Thinking Body

How do we go beyond office ergonomics and liberate our full kinesthetic creativity in the information economy?

Meu Rio: International Interdisciplinary Collaboration for Local Activism

Conference paper delivered at the AIGA Educators Conference 2012 "Geographics" in Honolulu, Hawai'i. The report is a personal reflection on my process and the role of design in my work with Meu Rio. Meu Rio ("My Rio" in Portuguese) is a non-partisan civil society organization based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that designs new interfaces for civic participation by creating online tools that connect citizens with government and each other and help ensure that people have a voice in the decisions that are transforming their city.

None of the Above

Public Voices Fellow

I was chosen to participate in the inaugural class of the ARCHE Public Voices Greenhouse, a program that prepares our nation’s top advocates, researchers, practitioners, philanthropy, and other health equity leaders to dramatically promote and amplify policy ideas, best practices, and solutions that address the social determinants of health and improve health outcomes for underserved communities.

People’s Choice Interaction Awards

The UX for Good New Orleans project presents the opportunity to connect independent musicians and audiences as never before, fostering a culture in which tourists are able to connect with artists during and after their visits. Musicians would be empowered to optimize self-management to increase their income and engage with their fan base. The lessons learned from this project could be applied to the advantage of musicians across the world.

Fellow / Entrepreneur-in-Residence

Notable Service Design Award

Designing for Financial Empowerment (DFE) is a cross-sector collaboration between the City of New York, Citi Community Development and the Parsons DESIS Lab to explore how service design can be used to make public sector financial empowerment services more effective and accessible.  This landmark initiative challenges the cycle of poverty by holistically examining current public policy and services; understanding the interrelated needs of New York City's most vulnerable populations; and enabling community members to participate in the co-design of the very services that they use, alongside policymakers, advocates and service providers.

Artist-in-Residence

Forward Slash Story is an application-only residential lab for writers, artists, technologists and designers. We attempt to tackle some of the most difficult problems surrounding storytelling in the 21st Century. I was selected to participate in the 2015 cohort in Nosara, Costa Rica as well as the 2018 cohort in Lamu, Kenya.

Best Experimental Podcast (Silver)

Shows that best uses untraditional ideas and techniques in concept, content or execution, to produce work that drives the medium forward.

Enterprise Design Thinking Practitioner

Masterclass Certificate: 21st Century Design with Don Norman

Enterprise Design Thinking - Team Essentials for AI

Enterprise Design Thinking Co-Creator

Masterclass Certificate: How To Attract Users Through Great Onboarding Experiences

Leading Innovation Certificate

Masterclass Certificate: Behavioral Design: Create Engaging Products with Behavioral Science

- Major in Government (Political Science)

Lee-Sean Huang, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Foossa, Joins Denver Frederick

The New School part-time faculty will stop receiving pay from university as strike continues

‘You’re Asian, Right? Why Are You Even Here?’

“Let’s do this together”: an interview with Letters for Black Lives

Podcast: Lets Talk Cooking Competition Shows w/ Lee-Sean Huang

The Awesome Foundation: Investing in the inspirational

Podcast: The JETAA-Sphere with Lee-Sean Huang

Video Podcast: Design Education Talks Ep. 47 - Lee-Sean Huang

These Organizations Are Creating Community for LGBTQ+ Creatives

Podcast: Episode 19. Lee-Sean Huang

Use Design Thinking To Grow Your Network

The Culture Workers Go on Strike

Podcast: The Surreal World with Lee-Sean Huang

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/nyregion/awesome-foundation-new-york-chapter-invests-in-awesome-ideas.html

A script for talking to your family about racism and police shootings

After 25 days, strike ends at New York’s New School and Parsons School of Design

Product Tribes: Ask Me Anything - Lee-Sean Huang

Your House Is Due for an Electrical Upgrade

Move Over, Kickstarter: Microfunding Sites Target Local Communities

"Lee-Sean Huang is a talented designer, a supportive educator, founder of a creative consultancy called Foossa and the Director of Design Content & Learning at AIGA. It was lovely to talk with him about his journey."

Lee-Sean Huang | Design Educator and Content Creator

Case Study: Designing for Financial Empowerment — Financial Counseling

Build It Back Better Insights Report

"In building its new certification program, AIGA leaned into the power of data to find what mattered most to its members. It’s familiar territory for the design-focused membership group."

How Members Can Tell You What You Need

Lee-Sean was interviewed about his career journey by author Robin Landa for her book A Career is a Promise: Finding Purpose, Success, and Fulfillment. 

Interview with Lee-Sean in A Career is a Promise

Podcast: “There’s Something So Definitive About ‘Gay'” (with Lee-Sean Huang)

What will the future of work look like in 2027?

Part-Time Faculty at New York’s New School Are on Strike

Fresh ideas | Free thinking #4

Kevin Lee interviews Lee-Sean Huang, Senior Director of Learning & Programs at AIGA (the American Institute of Graphic Arts). The conversation covers how the design profession is evolving, how creative briefs are changing, and how the design community is adapting to new technologies, including AI, which are already having a significant impact on how designers work.

Lee-Sean Huang on the future of creativity and design in the age of AI

- BBC World Service interview with Virginia Duan, Aeri Kim, and Lee-Sean Huang reflecting on what the film Everything Everywhere All at Once's Oscar wins meant to us as Asian Americans
- Lee-Sean: "I'm very much a fan of Everything Everywhere All at Once, but I think what happens when you break through a ceiling is it becomes the new floor, right? The film resonated with me a lot because there's just so many parallels with my own life, right? And I think there's a positive thing to normalize Asian American stories."
- Link above: archived recording of the March 15, 2023 broadcast with machine transcription.

Interview

The Change-Makers

100 Passionate People: Lee-Sean Huang – Designer, Activist, and Artist

Striking New School Adjuncts Show Up at Trustees’ Homes

- Designed guide to social innovation written Jeff Leitner and Andrew Benedict-Nelson based on material originally developed for a social work Ph.D. program at the University of Southern California

See Think Solve: A Simple Way to Tackle Tough Problems

- Conceive, produce, and promote podcasts, webinars, and other online and in-person educational programming for the oldest and largest professional association for design in the United States
- Collaborate with subject matter experts and influencers in the arts, academia, media, and technology to create professional development content that reaches nearly 1 million people across AIGA's combined online channels (Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Email) 
- Develop and teach Portfolio Development Studio, an online cohort-based course that helps designers assemble their portfolios and tell their professional stories
- Developed curriculum and portfolio review criteria for AIGA's Professional Designer and Design Leader certification programs which launched in 2023
- Won silver in the Best Experimental Podcast category at the 2022 Signal Awards for producing AIGA's Design Adjacent podcast
- Organized AIGA's National Design Conferences in 2022 (Seattle) and 2023 (New York City).

Podcasts, Social Media, and Educational Programming

UX for Good assembles designers from around the world to participate in intensive design sprints that address important social issues
- Participated in two week-long sprints in Kigali and London with the Kigali Genocide Memorial and Aegis Trust to design ways to translate the feelings evoked by genocide memorials into sustainable action
- Conducted research and co-design with Rwandan genocide survivors, memorial staff members, and representatives from government and civil society
- Developed and open-sourced the Inzovu Curve framework which maps a prototypical journey of a person going through the transformative experience of a museum reaching a state of motivation and action (Inzovu means "elephant" in Kinyarwanda)
- Organized public design jam at the Queens Museum in New York City to further test and develop the Inzovu Curve framework

Kigali Genocide Memorial (Rwanda)

- Collaborated in an intensive design sprint with designers from Twitter, Google, and other organizations to help musicians in New Orleans connect with audiences and increase their income
- Conducted design research with musicians, music fans, venue owners, and social service providers 
- Designed and open-sourced concepts for (1) digital platform that allows musicians to track performance data and share information with fans; (2) network of meeting spots for musicians to exchange knowledge and resources, and (3) new tipping system that makes it easier for listeners to leave tips for bands at restaurants and bars.
- Awarded People’s Choice Interaction Award from IxDA﻿ in 2013.

Supporting Independent Musicians in New Orleans

- Produced three online classes: Design Thinking for Business Innovation, Become a Design Thinking Facilitator, and Futurecasting for Product Innovation

Design Thinking Course Bundle

The miLES Do Tank was an action-oriented design thinking course, tied to a challenge to translate learnings into local impact. 

- Collaborated with experts from Makeshift, NYU Design for America, Made in the Lower East Side, and IDEO to facilitate 14-program for young professionals and graduate students around the theme of "Borders, Migration, and Immigration" in New York City

DoTank

Designing for Financial Empowerment (DFE) is a cross-sector initiative to explore how service design can be used to make public sector financial empowerment services more effective and accessible. 
- Co-led financial counseling project with the Parsons DESIS Lab (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability), 
- Conducted research about New York City's financial counseling services 
- Co-designed ways to improve client retention by 10%, leading to greater chance of successful financial outcomes 
- Received a Core77 Notable Service Design award.

Financial Counseling Project

- Collaborated with a group of West Point cadets, faculty, and staff and the New York City Department of Veterans Services to better understand and design ways to address the challenges faced by people in the military transitioning back to civilian life

Design-Centered Approaches to Veterans Services

- Produced audio course on innovation and design thinking drawing on my experience teaching the subject in university and corporate learning contexts

Innovate with Design Thinking

- Perform and record cover songs and original music for voice and ukulele

Music: Voice and Ukulele

- Produced audio recordings of public domain books and stories with Peter Neofotis

Forgotten Stories to Be Remembered

- Produced and published a street photography book documenting experiences with the world re-emerging from pandemic isolation

Look at the Beautiful

- Wrote and recorded a sea shanty-inspired comedy tune about the Taiwanese container ship Ever Given stuck in the Suez Canal

Stuck in the Suez

- Developed the character and created the Instagram channel for Design Dom, who delivers tough love with an ASMR voice and BDSM sense of humor for creative control freaks
- Final project for comedy writing class at the School of Visual Arts taught by Bobbie Walles

Design Dom

- Played a capoeira-fighting henchman in a comedy music video by The Gregory Brothers and Japanese German yodeler Takeo Ischi

Rat Attack - The Yodel of Justice

Played a tech bro version of myself in a comedy short about a fictional social network

Frempty

Transformative Storytelling

- How will design be practiced and taught in the future? How can designers (and design-centered companies) stay ahead of these changes with new skills and competencies? 
- Introducing AIGA's Design Futures trends, published in late 2018, as well as the results of ongoing research and community engagement on the topic

The Future of Design and How We Can Prepare

- Be BRAVE: the theme of the 2022 Asian Creative Festival 
- Hosted 3 sessions on the first day: "Cultivating Creative Communities" with Justin Chang, "World-Class Mentorship" with Felix Lee, and "Ruthless Prioritization" with Kenny Nguyen

Host

Panel: Future of the Sharing Economy

Sharing the story of my creative career with design students at Colorado State University

BIPOC Designer Brown Bag Lunch Talk

Guest lecture with David Colby Reed in the course "Environmental Data Visualization & Communication" taught by Jennifer Marlon

Dialogue on Data and Design

Panel: The Future of Community

Panelists: Mary Madden, Researcher, Data and Society; Taylor Moore, Free Expression Fellow, Center for Democracy and Technology; and Lee-Sean Huang, Co-founder and Creative Director at Foossa

The Big Data Society: How Algorithms Shape Opportunity and Disadvantage

Building Networks for Good

Workshop for the International Legal Technology Association with V. Mary Abraham

Design Thinking for Applications Development and Knowledge Management

Techniques for Interdisciplinary Creative Collaboration

Design as Adaptation

Lightning Talk: The Radical Roots of Design Tools

Panel: Product Design & Strategy

Keynote: Rewind, Pause, Fast-forward

Panel: Driving Social Change Through Design

Social Media Storytelling

#GenerationZeroHunger: Technology & Innovation

- Delivered opening remarks and hosted day 1 of the 3-day AIGA National Design Conference in Seattle 
- Link above: audio recording of panel I hosted with Anne H. Berry, Jennifer Rittner, and Kelly Walters, editors of The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression & Reflection, which spotlights teaching practices, research, stories, and conversations from a Black/African diasporic lens

Facilitating Community Engagement

Creators Panel: Telling the JET Story

Bringing Diverse and Inclusive Futures to Life

AIGA Design Futures

My Life in Design

Live-streamed panel and podcast about design thinking with Claire Bridges, Melissa Rancourt, Dave Sutton and Lee-Sean Huang

Panel: What if the process were the purpose?

Innovation through co-creation – how to add value from the local user perspective

On Creative Perspectives

Mischievous Movement Workshop: Kinesthetic Conversations in Crowded Spaces

Trends for Design Education

Building a Model for the Design Process

Presentation with David Colby Reed about applying design thinking and service design to credit unions

Member-Centered Service Design

5 Ideas About Social Innovation Design

- Panelists: Nate Schneider, Garance Choko, Rachel Susan, Mathias Vestergaard, Lee-Sean Huang
- Moderator: Alexa Clay

Panel: Wisdom Hackers

Designing for Financial Empowerment

The Fundamentals of Design Thinking

- Keynote presentation reframing labor organizing as a continuation and extension of design practice and pedagogy 
- Making the case for why organizing is an essential skill in a designer’s toolkit. 
- Sharing my experiences as one of the leaders of the 2022 part-time faculty strike at The New School/Parsons School of Design, the longest adjunct faculty strike in US labor history to date, which resulted in negotiating a 30% minimum pay increase over a 5-year contract ratified by 97% of part-time faculty union members

Labor Organizing as Design Project

I was elected by fellow part-time faculty at The New School to serve on the bargaining committee in our 2022 contract negotiations. After going on strike for 25 days, the longest adjunct professor strike in US history, we negotiated a contract that included a 30% minimum pay increase over a 5-year term. The contract was ratified by 97% of eligible union members. My social media posts about the contract campaign and strike were acquired by The New School's archivist for inclusion in the university's permanent collection.  

After finishing my term on the bargaining committee, I was elected to serve a two-year term (2023-2025) as the Sergeant-at-Arms in our union local's executive board.

Bargaining Committee Member and Sergeant-at-Arms

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare inequities in health, wealth and opportunity. The uprising for racial justice in the United States has produced a global outcry. But the systems that perpetuate inequity and injustice have been generations in the making. Racial Equity 2030 is a call to reimagine and build a future where equity is realized. In honor of the W.K Kellogg Foundation’s 90th anniversary, Racial Equity 2030 will award $90 million to organizations that invite, build and scale ideas for transformative change in the social, economic and political systems and institutions that uphold inequities. I served as a reviewer for the grant applications.

Expert Reviewer

I have served on the board of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program Alumni Association of New York since 2018. I previously served as the webmaster for the association starting in 2006. The link above is to a JETAA-sphere podcast interview where I talked about my experience in Japan on the JET Program and where it has brought me in my life and career.

Board Member

The Stronger Democracy Award granted a total of $22 million to proven, scalable, and game-changing solutions that address one or more of the following categories: 
- Voting & Elections
- Policy Making
- Civic Engagement
The objective of the Award is to incentivize our government to be more responsive to the broader electorate and ensure that it is staffed with high-quality, high-functioning institutions and people.

Juror

The Awesome Foundation is a global community advancing the interest of awesome in the universe, $1000 at a time. Each fully autonomous chapter supports awesome projects through micro-grants, usually given out monthly. These micro-grants, $1000 or the local equivalent, come out of the pockets of the chapter's "trustees" and are given on a no-strings-attached basis to people and groups working on awesome projects. I served as a trustee and treasurer of the New York chapter of the Awesome Foundation.

Trustee and Treasurer

I served on the programming committee organizing my 20-year college reunion at Harvard. I also produced and edited a crowdsourced video where members of our class shared words of wisdom with our younger selves.

Programming Committee Member

Mission Daybreak, formerly known as the Suicide Prevention Grand Challenge, is a $20 million grand challenge to reduce Veteran suicides. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs called on innovators to develop suicide prevention solutions that meet the diverse needs of Veterans. I served as a design mentor to the Televeda team's "Project Hózhó," the first mental health app and comprehensive operational plan for American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) populations. Televeda designed the tool in partnership with AIAN and Veteran communities for Navajo Veterans with plans to adapt and expand for use with other tribes. The solution incorporates traditional healing practices like storytelling and talking-circle interventions to reduce Veteran suicide and improve access to VA resources. The project won first place and $3 million.

Design Mentor

The Utah Division of Arts & Museums awards $5,000 annual fellowships to 15 Utah artists in design, performing, and visual arts to recognize their individual artistic excellence and support their professional careers. I served as the Design Arts Juror for the Utah Artist Fellowship in 2023, the first year that design was included in the fellowship program.

Design Arts Juror

- Taught English as a second language to Japanese children and adults
- Organized cultural exchange events
- Completed certificate program in teaching elementary Japanese as a foreign language

Assistant Language Teacher

- Designed and localized advocacy and fundraising communications materials for online and print
- Organized donor events, including the annual conference of major international donors

Development and Outreach Associate

- Established user experience design practice
- Developed communications campaigns; web, mobile, and in-person user experiences; and social innovation business models with clients including Audi, Dove (Unilever), Livestrong Foundation, and the European Commission
- Conducted ethnographic design research projects in the United States, Brazil, and India   
- Created curriculum and taught internal training modules and public workshops
- Served as a part-time Design and Strategy Advisor from 2013-2015

Designer and Strategist

* Research, strategize, and produce content for online and in-person educational programming targeting \~8,000 paid members and \~1 million total combined online audience
* Develop and promote online courses and certification programs
* Organize and host online and in-person events including the 2022 Design Conference, attended by approximately 1200 people
* Produce and edit “Design Adjacent” podcast, which won silver in the Best Experimental Podcast category of the 2022 Signal Awards
* Manage a network freelance community managers, content creators, designers, and editors

Senior Director of Learning & Programs

- Develop original curriculum and teach hybrid “Technologies for Designing Change” course in Design for Social Innovation masters program
- Advise student thesis projects in the Interaction Design masters program
- Completed courses in documentaries film production, comedy writing, and street photography

Adjunct Instructor

- Taught “Design Thinking,” “Web Design & Computing Principles”, and “Storytelling for Social Impact” 
- Mentored students in Design for America

- Own and operate a design and strategy consultancy with clients ranging from startups to companies in Fortune 500, local governments to the United Nations
- Facilitate corporate training workshops on design thinking, service design, and storytelling
- Created online courses in design thinking, innovation, and strategic foresight for CreativeLive, Knowable, and HighBrow

Cofounder and Creative Director (Part-Time)

Adjunct Professor

- Develop and teach hybrid intensive course in design strategy and strategic foresights in Parsons Paris-based executive masters program in Strategic Design for Global Leadership
- Created and taught courses in the “Design Leadership for Business” and "Business Design for Social Impact" online continuing education certificates
- Developed and taught "Design for Citizenship" course with David Colby Reed in the Transdisciplinary Design masters program
- Co-led with David Colby Reed research project with Parsons DESIS Lab (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability) about the design of financial empowerment services in New York City, which won a 2016 Notable Service Design Award from Core 77 
- Elected to 2022 part-time faculty collective bargaining committee and negotiated 30% minimum pay increase over 5 years contract ratified by 97% of eligible union members