An un-conference style gathering of social impact and healthcare innovators
with Beneficent Design
The ILN and Beneficent Design teamed up to host the Design for Dignity Conference—a gathering of 150+ innovators eager to explore how to design for dignity.
Dignity has been mostly implicit and sometimes explicit for many designer and innovators in the health and social impact spaces. But often, due to speed, dollars, and other resource constraints it can get left behind. This gathering raised the level of awareness of dignity as design principles and call to action, and re-establish vibrant healthcare and social impact design communities.
While catching up over coffee, Chris McCarthy (ILN) and Amy Heymans (Beneficent Design) lamented the loss of being in community with people, in person. Amy shared a kernel of idea, “I’ve been working on a workshop called Design for Dignity which is a framework.”
Chris knew that this was a call to action and that an entire community would rally behind those three words. “Design for Dignity” was fuzzy, almost meaningless, and each person who heard the phrase had there own visceral understanding of what it could be. In short, the perfect theme—space to explore and push, mixed with passion for what it could be.
The initial estimate was about 80 social impact and healthcare innovators and designers convening, but the theme attracted many more kinds of folks including those from the safety net, government, and tech. It triggered a pre-conference gathering to launch a global community on frugal innovation. Ultimately, 150 folks joined in Boston in June 2024 ready to connect, share, and learn.
Unconferences subvert the expert-centered structure of traditional conferences by instead prioritizing participant voices.
The event style was inside out with the intention to get to work as fast as possible. Instead of starting with “talking heads”, attendees were immediately put into workshops to start learning and building relationships. Thoughtful breaks designed to pair strangers together helped deepen the connection between participants.
The Open Space approach flipped the power to the attendees to co-create in real time the exact agenda they needed. Attendees created and hosted over 40 sessions during the event. Several groups continue on after the close of the conference, including an AI consortium and Systems Thinking Community of Practice.
“You really reimagined the entire conference experience. I was engaged for the entire time, which I have never had the energy to do at any other conference before. It was like experiencing technicolor for the first time after years of black and white TV.”
Workshop Participant
“What I loved the most is the diverse tapestry of people you guys bring together. You take risks. You take the time and create spaces to be different. Very few conveners curate at the edge and not just what's popular.”
Workshop Participant
“I was so moved by the genuine human connections that we made through this conference. I appreciate the interactivity, the arts, and the open space allowing everybody to have the conversation, get their voice heard, and express their passions.”
Workshop Participant
Beneficent focuses on creating human-centered business strategies by actively collaborating with the people an organization serves, aiming to design experiences that uphold dignity, enrich lives, and foster positive social impact through a deeply empathetic and user-centric approach.