How might design transform lives around the world? Act as a catalyst for change? Expand access? Include those who have been excluded?

Design with the 90%: Improving Lives Around the World, highlighted the global efforts of designers striving to answer these questions and developing affordable and sustainable shelter, food, drinking water, sanitation, and health solutions for some of the world’s most marginalized communities. Design with the 90%, which was organized by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum featured 25 projects that demonstrated how design can be a dynamic force for social change.

Several Seattle-area designers were featured, such as BURN Design Lab, PATH, a leader in global health innovations, and Teague whom collaborated on a design prototype Kenyan-designed Kio Kit, which combines 40 kid-friendly tablets and headphones, a wireless charging case with 5TB of storage and pre-loaded educational content that can transform remote schools into digital classrooms. Review the full list of featured projects.

The exhibition also highlighted local issues where design can play a key role in developing solutions to challenges facing communities in the Seattle area. Visitors participated in a design thinking challenge, got inspired, and connected to local design community programs, and learned more about how to get involved.

Design with the 90% was organized by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.