México City will be the third city for What Design Can Do to land. From May 2019 onwards WDCD will have a third annual event in place in addition to its annual conferences in Amsterdam and São Paulo. With the support of former México City mayor Marcelo Ebrard and in collaboration with the Reinventing México Foundation, WDCD will host a three-day event in the Méxican capital from 6 till 8 May 2019.
‘We are thrilled to be taking WDCD to México City, a place with a rich culture of design and, above all, with a creative community that is working every day towards making México and our planet a better place,’ says WDCD’s co-founder and creative director Richard van der Laken. ‘WDCD Mexico City will reinforce our work in Latin America and will aim to become a strategic link between the design thinking and doing across the Americas. We are grateful to Marcelo Ebrard for his visionary leadership and for encouraging us to take this move.’
Javier López Casarín, President of Reinventing Mexico Foundation
First speakers confirmed
WDCD Live Mexico City is a joint venture between WDCD and the Reinventing Mexico Foundation, whose mandate is to promote social and technological innovation in Mexico. About this new collaboration the foundation’s president Javier López Casarín says: ‘One of the objectives of the Reinventing México Foundation is to bring to our country the most relevant and interesting social innovation events today. In May of 2019, the first edition of What Design Can Do Live México City will position Mexico at the epicentre of the global conversation about the social power of design. It really can’t be missed!’
The main venue for WDCD Live Mexico City will be the beautiful Palacio de Bellas Artes, the city’s main theatre hall. Among the already confirmed speakers for the event is journalist and art critic Alice Rawsthorn. Speakers will discuss and propose practical solutions to issues like: urban mobility, climate change and the refugee crisis.
Alice Rawsthorn at WDCD Live Amsterdam 2017 (Photo Leo Veger)
Advisory board
WDCD Mexico City is led by Director General Alain Pescador, and has installed an advisory board of esteemed individuals from the Mexican design and cultural scenes including Martha Delgado, environmentalist and director at Fundación PENSAR, Alejandro Magallanes, graphic designer, Ana Elena Mallet, independent curator, Luis Mandoki, filmmaker, Lorenzo Mtz. Martínez de la Escalera, CEO of Corrosión y Protección, Enrique Norten, architect and founder of TEN Arquitectos, Pambo, artist and activist, Kerstin Scheuch, Directora General of CENTRO university.
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