Designing With, not For addresses design as a collaborative endeavor, one in which users, communities and stakeholders actively participate. Human centered design has traditionally focused on providing expert responses to user needs.

Designing With, not For goes beyond that position to directly involve users, as equals, in the design process. The event will analyze different collaborative design processes, particularly in the African context, through a conversation between Richard Perez, founding director of the Hasso Plattner School of Design Thinking at the University of Cape Town; Amy Smith, founding director of the MIT D-Lab; Surbhi Agrawal, 2022 MAD Design Fellow, urban planner, and data scientist at Sasaki; and Aditya Mehrotra, instructor of Mobiles for Development at MIT.