social design

How can activism, philanthropy and filmmaking combine to create a platform for sustainable and constructive social innovation? Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the extraordinary story of a small band of Liberian women who came together in the midst of a bloody civil war, took on the violent warlords and corrupt Charles Taylor regime, and won a long-awaited peace for their shattered country in 2003. After a screening of this important film, producer Abigail Disney will talk about the work of the film, its challenges and the opportunities it has created.

About the Speaker: 
Abigail Disney (Producer) is Founder and President of the Daphne Foundation. She has spoken internationally about the power of activist philanthropy and the importance of pursuing a life of engaged and intelligent volunteerism. Abby serves on the boards of the White House Project, and the Global Fund for Women, and the Fund for the City of New York, as well as on the advisory boards of the Association to Benefit Children, and the HIV Law Project. She is currently co-producing, with Gini Reticker, a series for Wide Angle and WNET tentatively called “Women and Children First” about the changing role of women in conflict worldwide.

The evening will engage participants in discussion of current applications of participatory dialogue as a practice for design thinking and social design action. Peter Jones will present and discuss two related models of "design for human-human interaction", Hugh Dubberly / Paul Pangaro’s Design for Conversation and Jones’ work on Dialogic Design (community site linked). The aim of Dialogic Design is to engage stakeholders of mixed interests and power (think healthcare, education) to formulate shared goals and attain authentic consensus on coordinated action for complex problem systems. As we expect a mix of current community participants and some new folks, our practice dialogue will be based on world café sessions on framing questions for dialogue and conversation. Our opening dialogue will start with a brief group reflection/introduction, followed by presentation and visual expression & reflection of ideas exchanged. We promise not to leave participants hanging – the Café and Harvest on “how do we frame questions” offers a rich opportunity for generating collective wisdom. A harvesting of questions and collective insights will follow and cap the evening. We also warmly invite participants from the IDEA 2009 conference to join us at 6-9 pm in the sLab, 6th floor OCAD. (We can only fit 20-25 comfortably, so don’t all show up at once!) RSVPs are welcomed. So are contributions for snacks and such.