Sheridan College Honours Bachelor of Interaction Design presents

Year End Show

YES is a week packed with events to celebrate the graduating students of 2022.
Thank you for attending our events ~

Tuesday

April 5, 2022

Alumni Keynote

**Ben Reimer**
(IxD, 2019)
(Web Developer, Motum B2B)
1:00pm-2:00pm EST

Open to: Interaction Design, Experiential Design, Product Design
Location: Zoom

The 2022 Year End Show launches with a keynote talk by our 2019 alumnus, Ben Reimer. Ben reflects on his experience of fear, and ways of tackling it, as a designer. Sharing stories from his school years and post-graduation, his journey highlights ways fear can manifest itself in relation to others, work, and career. Drawing from psychology and personal experience he offers a few mindsets to help reclaim a healthy design life. Ben is currently a Web Developer at Motum B2B.

Student Talk

**Bruno Shinji Akune**
(4th Year Student)
3:00pm-4:00pm EST

Open to: Interaction Design, Experiential Design, Product Design
Location: Zoom

Bruno shares his process of using social media for design research and selecting topics for design projects.

Industry Talk

Jordan Borges
(IxD, 2018)
(Senior Product Designer, DevOps at RBC)
4:30pm-5:30pm EST

Open to: Interaction Design, Experiential Design, Product Design
Location: Zoom

Jordan Borges is a Senior Product Designer at RBC under DevOps, Technology & Operations. He’s been working at RBC for 5 years and started in the training space, where he taught teams about design thinking. During COVID he decided to make a change and get back to being a design practitioner. He can’t wait to share his story! Stick around for a Q&A after Jordan’s talk.

Wednesday

April 6, 2022

Industry Talk

Brittany Gerow
(Design Lead, HUGE Inc.)
11:00am-12:00pm EST

Open to: Interaction Design, Experiential Design, Product Design
Location: Zoom

Brittany is a multidisciplinary Design Director based on Toronto who works with teams of art directors, writers, engineers, researchers, and strategists to design experiences for brands. In this talk, Brittany shares best practices for design, applying for jobs in design, and walks through exemplary case studies. Brittany is currently a Design Lead at HUGE Inc.

Student Talk

Wilson Truong and Leo Geng
(4th Year Students)
2:00pm-3:00pm EST

Open to: Interaction Design, Experiential Design, Product Design
Location: Zoom

Wilson and Leo share ways to prevent and manage experiencing burnout in design.

Industry Keynote

Ron Wakkary, PhD, Interaction Design
(Simon Fraser University)
4:30pm-5:30pm EST

Open to: Interaction Design, Experiential Design, Product Design
Location: Zoom

Ron Wakkary is a Professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University in Canada where he founded the Everyday Design Studio (eds.siat.sfu.ca). In addition, he is a Professor and Chair of Design for More Than Human-Centred Worlds in the Future Everyday Cluster in Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. Wakkary’s research investigates the changing nature of design in response to new understandings of human-technology relations and posthumanism. He aims to reflectively create new design exemplars, theory, and emergent practices to contribute generously and expansively to understanding ways of designing that are more accountable, cohabitable, and equitable. In this talk, Wakkary shares concepts and theories from his latest book, Things We Could Design For More Than Human-Centered Worlds (2021).

Thursday

April 7, 2022

Alumni Talk

**Ren Black**
(IxD, 2021)
11:00am-12:00pm EST

Open to: Interaction Design, Experiential Design, Product Design
Location: Zoom

Ren Black is a multi-disciplinary designer and sci-fi/fantasy lover, who is fascinated with how powerful narratives shape impactful experiences. After graduating from Sheridan’s IXD program in 2021, they entered into their professional career, joining Speer Technologies as a Product Designer. Ren has since transitioned to Head of UX Design. Outside of work, they spend most of their free time learning new skills and exploring new softwares and technologies to further expand their skill set and lean into their Jack-of-all-trades nature. Ren is currently Head of UX Design at Speer.

In this talk, Ren shares about their journey in exploring and learning new skills after graduation.

Industry Workshop

Ron Wakkary, PhD, SFU
Armi Behzad, PhD Candidate, Everyday Design Studio, SFU
Jordan Eshpeter, PhD Candidate, Everyday Design Studio, SFU
(Simon Fraser University)
1:00pm-2:30pm EST

Open to: 4th Year Interaction Design Students Only
Location: Zoom

In this workshop, Ron Wakkary guides students to understand ways of applying the concepts and theories from his book, Things We Could Design. 4th Year student attendees registered to the Industry Keynote Event will receive a link to attend this workshop via email.

Armi Behzad: Armi is a third year Ph.D. student at the Everyday Design Studio. As a growing design researcher, she is interested in design-based inquiry concerning human-technology relations. Her current research is grounded in more-than-human ways of understanding the world, pushing design towards including nonhumans as partners in the design process. Armi uses research though design, and critical and speculative methods to create things that are inclusive of the entangled world humans cohabit with technologies, animals, plants, and other nonhumans. Armi earned her Master's in Creative Technologies from Virginia Tech with a focus in HCI and tangible interaction design. Prior to that, she completed a Master's and a Bachelor's in Architecture.

Jordan Eshpeter: Jordan is a Ph.D. student at the Everyday Design Studio in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT) at Simon Fraser University. His research focuses on the intersection of design practice, ethics, and futures. He has also spent over ten years at design and technology consultancies leading strategy and business development teams. Additionally, Jordan has presented at SIAT, Parsons School of Design, Touchpoint Interaction Design Conference, and the Philosophy of Human-Technology Relations Conference.

Student Talk

Valeriia Zub
(4th Year Student)
3:30pm-4:30pm EST

Open to: Interaction Design, Experiential Design, Product Design
Location: Zoom

Valeriia shares tips for designers on how they can adapt and integrate into cross-functional teams that have no prior experience working with designers- all in one month!

Friday

April 8, 2022

Alumni Panel

Disha Yadav and Zubash Akmal
(IxD Alumni, 2021)
1:00pm-2:00pm EST

Open to: Interaction Design, Experiential Design, Product Design
Location: Zoom

We welcome Disha and Zubash to share best practices in remote work-life balance in this panel.

About Disha: “Hi! I’m Disha (she/her) currently working as a UX Designer at the Ontario Digital Service. My love for public service work comes from a continuous keen interest in Policy & Law since high school. This has helped me combine my leadership + design skills to build tools, products & processes that are used by thousands of Ontarians on a daily basis. Looking forward to chatting with y’all!”

About Zubash: Zubash graduated from Sheridan's IXD program in 2021 and went on to grow her UX design and research practice at Intact Financial Corp. She is now at Autodesk. In her current role, she works on exciting solutions that impact the media and entertainment industry and empowers designers and artists worldwide. Outside of work, she enjoys reading psycho-thrillers and hanging out with her cat!

Portfolio Project IRL

2:00pm-5:00pm EST

Open to: 4th Year Interaction Design Students Only
Location: Sheridan College Trafalgar Campus, J-Wing Room 219

IRL - In Real Life! 4th year students are welcome to join for an in-person class to celebrate their achievements of their final year. Attendees are welcome to come in-person at 1:00pm to watch the alumni panel together.