The Jury

Kaave Pour is a creative entrepreneur from Copenhagen. As the former co-founder, CEO, and Creative Director of SPACE10, he guided the renowned R&D lab to global recognition across four continents before its closure after a decade of innovative work.

Kaave’s expertise spans design, culture, and technology, with notable collaborations including giants like IKEA, Apple, MIT, and the UN. A frequent speaker and guest lecturer, he shares his forward-thinking insights, encouraging a curious and playful mindset among emerging designers, brands, and organizations.

Currently, Kaave has embarked on a series of new ventures, a Copenhagen-based restaurant, a farmhouse and retreat in Sweden, and his latest big bet: Sun-Sun, a new European design and technology company on a mission to imagine and build the new home, launching in Fall 2024.

Sofie Holstein-Homann has worked as a strategic design consultant for almost two decades. She is Global Managing Partner at the strategy-design consultancy Manyone and was among the group of founders. Previously, Sofie worked at Designit in several leading positions.

Sofie works with large global companies on complex challenges and is a trusted strategic advisor to her clients. With a strong focus on insights and strategy, she helps businesses transform and better understand their future context and the ever-changing expectations of their customers.

Sofie holds a joint master in Industrial Design Engineering from the Royal College of Art and Imperial College, London.

An architect, product designer, and engineer by training, Banny has been working for the past two decades in advancing design approaches and developing innovation methodology for systems challenges marked by scale, complexity, uncertainty, and deeply entrenched systemic risks, along with helping leaders shape integrated system strategies. He works with the private sector, public sector, as well as international institutions such as the UN, The World Economic Forum, and The Nature Conservancy to bring systems approaches to scaled sustainability challenges.

After working as a designer at IDEO, Banny served as Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Stanford Design Program. Subsequently, he founded and ran Stanford ChangeLabs, where the Systems Acupuncture methodology emerged along with the rubric for Systems Leadership. He is now focused on designing platforms and system transformation strategies for scaled impact on planetary issues such as biodiversity, oceans, climate, energy, development paradigms, land use, food, water, and UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

He is a frequent keynote speaker and advisor to large-scale impact initiatives and businesses seeking strategic clarity vis-a-vis sustainability. Banny is appointed as Adjunct Professor with the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, where he helped start a Master’s program on Sustainability. At Stanford, he teaches Design, Large-Scale Systems Innovation, System Acupuncture, Platform Design, and Systems Leadership.

His career has included architecture, structural engineering, software development, energy, furniture design, technology art, product design, integrated innovation for developing country issues, technology futures, teaching, entrepreneurship, design theory, complex global challenges, and development of advanced innovation methodology.

Matylda Krzykowski directs, designs, writes, and talks about objects within space and ideas outside of space. Her transdisciplinary, geographically mobile practice resonates worldwide through exhibitions, installations, talks, texts, performances, and exhibits.

As artistic lead of CIVIC at Basel Academy of Art & Design, Matylda Krzykowski provides an educational and experimental environment with opportunities for participation, contribution, and exchange to promote an understanding of the relevance of art and design to society.

Akanksha Deo Sharma, a multidisciplinary designer and artist, works as an in-house designer at IKEA. Recognized in Forbes India’s 30 Under 30 for her work in integrating craft into the global design landscape.

With a foundation in fashion design, Sharma actively collaborates with craft communities, highlighting the essential role of community and craft in societal progress and its intrinsic link to materials and the land.

Her work incorporates new and waste materials, exploring our relationship with these resources as society evolves. Notably, in her Forandring project, she transformed rice straw, a harvest residue from India, into a renewable material for IKEA.

Sharma’s work has been featured in Wallpaper, Dezeen, FRAME, Vogue, Elle, and exhibited at the London Design Museum. As a TEDx speaker, One Young World ambassador and The Soulful’s mentor, she advocates for inclusivity and believes in design’s power to drive positive behavioral change.

Having moved to Scandinavia three years ago, Sharma switches between Copenhagen, Malmö, and Delhi- and seeks to understand — and address — the ways in which society is evolving.

Kara is VP of Regenerative Design at frog, the reinvention and experience partner part of Capgemini Invent. Over the past 20 years, she has helped her clients to shape new products, services and businesses. As global lead for sustainability, she is focusing her attention on ensuring teams and organisations can deliver outcomes that ensure a liveable future for people and planet in the Eco-Digital Era™.

Kara has a keen interest in the dynamic insights that can be found at the intersection of people, products and systems. Her work with both Fortune 500 companies and impact organizations has enabled to understand the challenges and opportunities that touch the spectrum of consumer products and services, health care, energy management, mobility,
and education.

Prior to frog, she pursued her master’s degree in design and ran her own design research consultancy in Vancouver, Canada. She is now based in Germany, where she also speaks, teaches and writes on design, sustainability and building creative capabilities in organizations.

Carsten Nguyen Henriksen is a Creative Director and Brand Consultant with over 15 years of design leadership experience across digital product design, corporate identity, wayfinding, packaging, and industrial design.

Carsten runs his own studio specializing in brand transformation that fuses business purpose, corporate culture, and product design, working with clients such as Danske Bank, KEA, AP Pension, and Digital Hub Denmark.

Previously, Carsten served as CEO and Creative Director at Designit, leading transformative projects and building design solutions for TV 2, Nykredit, SAS, Novo Nordisk, Royal Unibrew, and others. He holds a M.Sc. in Industrial Design and has received multiple accolades, including the Pentaward, IF, and Red Dot Award.

Carsten’s commitment extends to design community and educational initiatives where he’s an active board member of Design denmark, the Danish Design Association, and sits on KEA’s Design Education Committee and the Representative Board for Kolding School of Design.

Tiina Karjalainen Kierysch is a Swedish-Finnish industrial designer and Head of Design at Bang & Olufsen, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. She has a track record of award-winning product creation in global design positions, including collaborations across transportation design.

Tiina has a broad experience of setting creative direction, leading design teams and processes from early concept stage to final product execution and launch.

Her passion for design, music and sustainability topics play a big role both in her
personal and professional life.

Over the last three decades, designer and CEO Torsten Valeur has successfully shaped the look and feel of numerous brand-defining products. Fascinated by technology but a true sculptor at heart, Torsten Valeur is on a constant quest for originality. Regardless if he works with start-ups or global companies, he always aspires to find solutions that are surprising yet intuitive while staying within the technical boundaries that each project inevitably brings.

Over the years, Torsten Valeur has been a prominent profile in the Danish and international design community. He is a popular speaker on various design issues just as he has contributed to several design publications.

Signe Kongebro is Global Design Director, Urbanism at Henning Larsen. In 2007,
Signe founded Henning Larsen’s sustainability department, and to this day, she is one of the driving forces behind the studio’s focus on sustainable construction in the industry. With her extensive knowledge, Signe is pioneering new ways to reduce carbon on an urban scale.

Signe leads the design of a wide range of ambitious Henning Larsen projects. These include Fælledby, an all-timber neighborhood in Copenhagen designed to reduce the carbon impact of the development and increase biodiversity in a balance of city and nature.

At the forefront of efforts to link innovation and new knowledge to inform design decisions, Signe is a frequent speaker and contributor to the global discourse on cities and decarbonization, in addition to holding positions on several boards and advisory boards.

Ask Agger originally studied political science but was led astray into the alluring world of movie making, game design and consulting before he managed to start a proper career as a government bureaucrat.

Today Ask is heading the change agency Workz, where he and his colleagues serve companies with the human aspect of organizational change and the design of game-based tools for learning and engagement.

To his own disappoint, Ask never got any good as a classic designer, but he has tried to compensate by tampering with design thinking and what can best be described as change design or narrative design.

Ida Engholm is a professor of design history and design theory at the Royal Danish Academy. She is the author of several books and articles on design and design-related topics. Her latest book is the influential debate book, Design for the New World: From Human Design to Planet Design. Ida Engholm is co-founder of the research journal Artifact: Journal of Design Practice and a member of the Danish Design Council.

Christian Mogensen is co-owner of Stupid Studio, a Danish B Corp-certified creative studio. Since its inception in 2006, Stupid Studio has focused on designing better futures and creating positive change for people and the planet.

Christian’s journey is marked by a strong foundation in computer science from the University of Southern Denmark and over 15 years of experience in creative leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He is a passionate speaker and an advocate for the importance of play in life. 

Over the years, Christian has received numerous awards and recognitions for his work with Stupid Studio. In addition to Stupid Studio, Christian is invested in the start-up company Connie, offering a simple, streamlined approach to document handling and project management for the television, media, and film industries.