Hear from the brightest minds in design and development
Featured speakers
All speakers
- Pronouns:He/him
Alex Kern is a hacker and founder, focused on the intersection of development, design, and AI. Alex was the founder and CEO of Dynaboard, which joined Figma in 2024. Prior to this, Alex rearchitected the core hot wallet of Coinbase after the acquisition of his first company, Distributed Systems. Alex studied Computer Science at UC Berkeley where he co-founded Cal Hacks, the world's largest collegiate hackathon. Alex enjoys building open source software in his spare time and was a technical advisor on HBO's Silicon Valley.
- Pronouns:He/him
Andrew “Boz” Bosworth is Meta’s CTO and Head of Reality Labs. Boz joined Facebook in 2006 as their ~10th engineer, and in his 19 year tenure he built the original News Feed, Messenger, Groups, as well as many early anti-abuse and infrastructure systems. At various times he has been the engineering director overseeing Events, Places, Photos, Videos, Timeline, Privacy, and more. Before establishing Reality Labs in 2017, he ran the Ads and Business Platform product group where he led engineering, product, research, analytics, and design taking annual revenue from $4B/yr to $40B/yr in 5 years.
- When:May 7 4:00 – 5:00 PM PDT
Building the next computing platform
- Theme:Keynote
- Topic:Hardware
- Topic:AI
- Topic:Strategy
- Pronouns:He/him
Andy Welfle is a writer and content designer, living and working in San Francisco. He’s the co-author of Writing is Designing: Words and the User Experience, a book about UX writing fundamentals, and has built content design practices at large companies and small innovative startups alike. He’s currently building a practice at Glean. When he’s not working his day job, Andy’s probably making zines about bad AI poetry, or podcasts about wooden pencils, Find out more and get in touch at andy.wtf.
- When:May 7 12:35 – 1:55 PM PDT
Writing is designing
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Content design
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:UX
- Pronouns:She/her
Annie Atkins has designed pieces for many Oscar-nominated-and-winning movies, such as Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel and Isle of Dogs, as well as Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies and West Side Story, and classic children’s films such as the latest Chicken Run and Indiana Jones movies. Her first book, Fake Love Letters, prompted Jeff Goldblum to write that “Annie makes the unreal seem hyperreal, and the real more supremely alive and utterly magical”. Her second book, Letters from the North Pole, was voted one of the best children's books of the year by the Sunday Times.
- When:May 8 10:40 – 11:40 AM PDT
Please, no glue on the cutting mat
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Illustration
- Topic:Visual design
Anthony is a designer and passionate educator, currently using his skills as a Designer Advocate at Figma. With over two decades of exerpeince, Anthony works with design teams worldwide to elevate their processes and expand their product design expertise. His deep-rooted passion for the design community has propelled him into numerous speaking engagements at conferences, meetups, and livestreams. Anthony thrives on sharing his knowledge and insights with fellow designers, fostering meaningful connections, and contributing to the collective growth of the design industry. Before working at Figma, Anthony was a designer and developer for National Geographic, building online educational courses for science and technology.
- Pronouns:He/they
Aosheng designs creative tools for embodied expression, world-building, and meaning-making. He daydreams about systems, metaphors, simulations, and ways to visualize them. At Figma, he works on a product that brings the power of Figma to new audiences. He also worked on Jambot in FigJam and 2024's April Fun cursors. Previously, he was the founding designer at Sprout, where he prototyped interfaces for cozy, communal computing.
- Pronouns:He/him
Arjun is a Senior Director of Product Strategy at Code and Theory, a technology and creative agency. As a strategist with degrees in engineering, management, and design, Arjun has worked across industries for brands like the NFL, Microsoft, The Ritz-Carlton, adidas, JPMorgan Chase & Co, CNN, the Rhode Island School of Design, and more that helped lead Code and Theory to be named Ad Age's 2024 Business Transformation Agency of the Year.
- When:May 7 12:25 – 1:25 PM PDT
No flags, just wins: reimagining the NFL app
- Theme:Product management
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:Scalability
- Topic:Visual design
- Pronouns:He/him
Product Designer at Evil Martians. A Warsaw-based multidisciplinary designer with a passion for Figma and AI. Occasional coder and video game enthusiast.
- Pronouns:She/her
Becca Ramos is a web, brand, and growth designer based in Atlanta, GA. She brings a thoughtful, data-informed approach to creating web and brand experiences that help brands grow and evolve. She is also passionate about music, wellness, coffee, and her two cats, Ponyboy and Ennui.
- When:May 7 11:10 – 12:10 PM PDT
Growth design as art and science
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Research
- Topic:Strategy
Bharat Batra leads the Migration Team at Coda. Over his 4+ years at Coda, he's worked in various roles, including engineering and now product management. He's also the developer of our Figma Variables integration. He’s passionate about streamlining cross-functional collaboration via product-led initiatives.
- When:May 7 1:35 – 1:55 PM PDT
Figma + Coda Brain: Design systems in an AI first ecosystem
- Theme:Design craft
- Pronouns:He/him
Carlo Michelangelo Luetto is a storyteller at his core, passionate about creating unique brands and crafting unforgettable narratives. With 20+ years of experience, he blends artistic vision with emotional depth to build meaningful connections. Raised between NYC and Buenos Aires, he draws inspiration from culture, community, and technology. Carlo has led award-winning teams for brands like Nike, Apple, Spotify, and Google, shaping stories that leave lasting impressions.
- Pronouns:She/her
Carmen Ansio is a Design Engineer at LottieFiles, where she connects design and development by creating tools and animations for interactive experiences. With a background in graphic design, illustration, and web development, she combines creativity and code to bring ideas to life. As a Google Developer Expert (GDE) and Microsoft MVP, Carmen shares her knowledge with the community and learns from others along the way. When she’s not designing or coding, she loves playing the piano and geeking out over retro video games.
- When:May 8 10:25 – 11:25 AM PDT
Design meets code: interactive animations with Figma
- Theme:Dev & code
- Topic:Collaboration
- Topic:Motion design
- Topic:UX
- Pronouns:He/him
Chad is a designer advocate at Figma where he collaborates with the design system community to share best practices and gather feedback for our product and teams. He has led and supported multiple scalable design systems, including single-brand, multi-brand, and private labeled systems, throughout his career. Outside of crafting digital assets he enjoys spending time with his family, making music, and exploring new pizza spots.
- When:May 7 2:15 – 3:15 PM PDT
From canvas to code: building design systems, together
- Theme:Dev & code
- Topic:Design systems
- Topic:Scalability
- Pronouns:She/her
Chara Smith co-founded Smith & Diction with her partner, Mike, a decade ago. The Philadelphia-based design studio specializes in creating thoughtful identities for imaginative clients.
- When:May 8 2:10 – 3:10 PM PDT
The wild west of collaborative brand design
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Brand
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:Collaboration
- Pronouns:She/her
Cheechee is a product designer at Instagram, currently incubating new bets. Previously, she worked on a number of creation and GenAI tools, helping to unlock creative expression for everyday consumers. Previously, she worked at Dropbox.
- When:May 7 2:15 – 3:15 PM PDT
Influencing via prototyping
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Prototyping
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:UX
- Pronouns:He/him
Chris Lattner is a Co-founder and the CEO of Modular, which is building an innovative new developer platform for AI and heterogeneous compute. Modular develops MAX, an AI deployment system that accelerates GenAI and PyTorch inference, as well as the Mojo:fire: language, which extends Python into high performance and accelerator programming domains. He has also co-founded the LLVM Compiler infrastructure project, the Clang C++ compiler, the Swift programming language, the MLIR compiler infrastructure, the CIRCT project, and has contributed to many other commercial and open source projects.
- When:May 8 2:10 – 3:30 PM PDT
Power of collective intelligence
- Theme:Dev & code
- Topic:AI
- Topic:Collaboration
- Pronouns:She/her
Christine Vallaure is the founder of moonlearning.io, a platform that brings UX, UI Design, and Figma together with code. With experience working for top brands and startups in Berlin, Mexico City, and London, she now calls Madrid home. Christine is passionate about blending design and technology, inspiring designers and developers to collaborate better. Through moonlearning.io, she embraces solopreneurship, proving that staying small can lead to big success. A global speaker on design, code, and solopreneurship, she’s currently writing her first book, The Solo: A Guide on Solopreneurship.
- When:May 7 2:25 – 3:45 PM PDT
Building digital products as a company of one
- Theme:Product building
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:Independent
- Topic:AI
- Pronouns:He/him
Cole Bemis is a Staff Research Engineer on the GitHub Next team, exploring innovative tools and technologies that push the boundaries of software engineering. Before joining GitHub Next, Cole spent four years working on GitHub's open-source design system, Primer. When he's not working, Cole enjoys outdoor adventures like skiing, mountain biking, and rock climbing.
- When:May 7 3:20 – 3:40 PM PDT
Design to code: unlocking creativity with GitHub and Figma
- Theme:Dev & code
- Topic:Scalability
- Topic:AI
- Pronouns:He/him
Corten Singer is one of the two cofounders at Augmental. He is passionate about interactive device design and its ability to bridge the gap between the digital world and the physical. Corten is especially enthusiastic about assistive technology and loves working closely with individuals to increase independence and QOL. Corten studied Computer Science & Cognitive Science at UC Berkeley ('17). He then worked on alternative input interactions at Microsoft Research, followed by his M.S. at UC Berkeley in EECS, where he created eye-tracking interfaces for hands-free control of power wheelchairs.
- Pronouns:He/him
Damien Correll is a New York-based Creative Director, leading the Figma Brand Studio. Previously, he led teams at Tumblr and Google, building large-scale design systems, redefining emojis, designing books, directing animations, creative-directing design conferences, and even art-directing a handful of typefaces. With over 20 years of experience, he has worked across brand and product design—often navigating the spaces in between. Whether it's running his own practice or working in-house, his focus remains the same: making the expected surprising, the strange familiar, and the accessible abundant.
- When:May 7 1:10 – 1:55 PM PDT
The evolution of brand identities
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Brand
- Topic:AI
- Topic:Strategy
- Pronouns:He/him
Daniel is a Chicago-based product designer working on AI at Figma. He's the creator of multiple Figma plugins, open-source design tools, and community resources.
- Pronouns:He/him
Darragh is a Software Engineer at Figma, where he leads development on a new AI tool for designers. Before Figma, he worked on Design Systems at Tinder and 3D Graphics at Microsoft. His work centers on empowering anyone to build software. He lives in New York City with his fiancée.
- Pronouns:He/him
David Galavotti is a Design Engineer exploring the intersection of creative coding and design tools. His experimental work focuses on building integrated workflows between Figma, WebGL shaders, and generative geometry, creating new ways for typography and interface elements to exist in dimensional space. His work combines custom shaders, parametric design, and cloud rendering pipelines to push creative tooling beyond traditional constraints. He has a passion for inspiring designers to break free from static 2D thinking and explore new possibilities in computational design.
- When:May 8 10:25 – 11:25 AM PDT
The endless canvas: Figma, 2D pixels & 3D shaders
- Theme:Dev & code
- Topic:UX
- Topic:Prototyping
- Topic:Motion design
- Pronouns:She/her
Diana is GitHub’s Head of Design, where she and her team strive to deliver a developer experience that empowers and transforms the world of software development. Diana oversees Product Design, Design Infrastructure, Brand and Marketing Design, Customer Research, and Design Engineering. Her team is responsible for the end-to-end user experience of GitHub's products and features—such as Pull Requests, Actions, and Copilot—as well as brand direction for marketing campaigns and key events such as GitHub Universe.
- When:May 7 3:20 – 3:40 PM PDT
Design to code: unlocking creativity with GitHub and Figma
- Theme:Dev & code
- Topic:Scalability
- Topic:AI
- Pronouns:She/her
Dr. Madeline Gannon is a multidisciplinary designer and inventor forging new futures for human-robot relations. Also known as "The Robot Whisperer", Gannon blends techniques in art, design, computer science, and robotics to convince robots to do things they were never intended to do: from transforming giant industrial robots into living, breathing mechanical creatures, to taming hordes of autonomous machines to behave like a pack of animals. She believes that Designers are the future in robotics, and shares how our unique abilities can shape how robots intersect with society.
- Pronouns:He/him
Dylan Field is the co-founder and CEO of Figma. Dylan studied computer science and mathematics at Brown University where he and his co-founder, Evan Wallace, first started experimenting with design tools built on (and for) the web. With funding from a Thiel fellowship, they began Figma. Prior to Figma, Dylan interned at O'Reilly Media, LinkedIn, and Flipboard.
- When:May 7 4:00 – 5:00 PM PDT
Building the next computing platform
- Theme:Keynote
- Topic:Hardware
- Topic:AI
- Topic:Strategy
- Pronouns:She/her
Ebi Atawodi is the Director of Product Management for YouTube Studio and a LEGO board member. Previously, she held product leadership roles at Netflix and Uber where she also launched Uber in West Africa. She is passionate about creating sustainable products that have a multi-generational impact and infusing magic into the "everyday" through the transformative power of storytelling. Earlier in her career, she founded the Etisalat Prize for Literature and worked as a full-stack engineer. Ebi holds degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computing Science, specializing in AI and Infographics.
- When:May 8 1:00 – 2:00 PM PDT
From storytelling as a PM to storytelling as a film director
- Theme:Product building
- Topic:Collaboration
- Topic:Brand
- Topic:Strategy
Elliot Jay Stocks is a designer and author, known in typographic circles for his time as the Creative Director of Adobe Fonts, the co-creator of Google Fonts Knowledge, the founder of 8 Faces magazine, and the author of the award-winning Universal Principles of Typography (Quarto, 2024). Elliot has spoken at design events around the world and has had his work profiled in numerous publications. He previously co-founded the lifestyle magazine Lagom with his wife, and also records electronic music as Other Form.
- When:May 8 10:40 – 11:40 AM PDT
Typography is the foundation of any design system
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:UX
- Topic:Typography
- Topic:Design systems
- Pronouns:He/him
Felipe is a Brazilian designer and creative director in New York with 18+ years of experience. He’s worked across branding, digital, editorial, and more, creating culturally relevant work for brands like Netflix, Apple, and Nike, as well as cultural institutions like Sundance Film Festival and PAC NYC. Before founding PORTO ROCHA, Felipe led design at Spotify for new brands and artist collaborations. He was also a designer at Sagmeister & Walsh and was a resident at Fabrica, working on the iconic COLORS Magazine.
- Pronouns:He/him
Gabriel Valdivia has spent two decades building 0→1 products for leading tech companies. As a design leader in large organizations and a sole designer for startups, he specializes in turning ambitious ideas into impactful products. Now, he runs an independent practice partnering with early-stage teams as a fractional design leader, working with clients like Daylight Computer, Workmate, and Google Ventures. Previously, Gabriel shaped product vision and teams at Patreon, led design at CNN, developed technology for safety at Google’s Jigsaw, and explored Virtual Reality at Meta.
- When:May 8 1:00 – 2:00 PM PDT
Design at the speed of startups
- Theme:Product building
- Topic:Prototyping
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:Collaboration
- Pronouns:He/him
Georges Gomes co-founded ‹div›RIOTS in 2020 to innovate at the intersection of Design and Engineering. After launching the widely popular html.to.design and story.to.design Figma plugins, Georges and the team introduced figma.to.website in 2024, pushing the boundaries of turning Figma designs into fully functional websites.
- Pronouns:He/him
Giorgio Caviglia is a designer and developer passionate about building professional tools. He joined Figma in 2023, where he works on Auto Layout and other core mechanics. Before that, he led design teams at startups like Webflow and Trifacta and worked as a design researcher at Stanford and Politecnico di Milano. Born and raised in Italy, Giorgio now lives in Chicago with his partner and their little, needy dog.
- Pronouns:She/her
Grace Walker is a web designer, developer, and course creator. After four years of freelancing designing and building custom websites, Grace recently joined Spellbook as Creative Director to craft magical marketing experiences for lawyers.
- When:May 7 11:10 – 12:10 PM PDT
Unlearning design: how testing transformed my work
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Brand
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:Independent
- Topic:Web design
- Pronouns:She/her
Helena Zhang is a designer, director, and writer with 15+ years experience building products, brands, and teams. Most recently, she managed the design team at Medium. She’s passionate about bridging brand and product, and crafting primitives (like icons and fonts) for the industry.
- When:May 7 2:25 – 3:45 PM PDT
The space-filling curve of design
- Theme:Product building
- Topic:Web design
- Topic:Independent
- Topic:Typography
Honey is the Co-founder & CEO of Locofy.ai, a Singapore based low-code platform that accelerates frontend development by converting Figma designs into frontend code powered by foundational design models. Prior to Locofy.ai, he was the Chief Product Officer at 3 startups - Homage, Finaccel and Wego where he and his teams built global award winning products and eventually decided to start Locofy.ai to solve their own pain points. He is passionate about solving global problems from the SEA region and is active in the Asian startup ecosystem as an angel investor and advisor.
- Pronouns:She/her
Inga Hampton is a designer from Northern Ireland and part of the Brand and Product Design team at Raycast. Known for creating vibrant, "over-complicated" art in Figma, she thrives on creativity and experimentation. Outside of work, she is pursuing her dream of creating a micro farm, renovating an old cottage, and being a donkey mom.
- When:May 8 10:40 – 11:40 AM PDT
The art of not naming your layers
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Illustration
- Topic:Visual design
- Pronouns:She/her
Irina leads Evil Martians, a consulting company partnering with developer tools startups. The team is renowned for creating influential open-source projects like PostCSS, Nanostores, Martian Mono, and oklch.com, while being major contributors to the Ruby on Rails ecosystem.
- Pronouns:He/they
Jake is Figma's first developer advocate, and spent the prior 12 years working as a software engineer on both sides of web applications. Jake loves to walk the line between design and code, bridge gaps in communication across product development, and bring as much fun and creativity to the work that they can manage to cram in along the way.
- When:May 7 2:15 – 3:15 PM PDT
From canvas to code: building design systems, together
- Theme:Dev & code
- Topic:Design systems
- Topic:Scalability
- Pronouns:He/him
Joel leads the product design team at Anthropic, the makers of Claude. He previously led teams at Airtable & Quora.
- When:May 7 11:00 – 12:00 PM PDT
Beyond agents: AI as a creative partner
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:AI
- Topic:UX
- Topic:Strategy
- Pronouns:He/him
John LePore is a visionary creative helping leading innovators strategize, visualize, and realize the next era of digital. John spent over a decade crafting iconic designs for 25+ Marvel Cinematic Universe films and pioneering user experiences for industry giants like Google, Ford, and Nike. Recently, John’s Apple Vision Pro F1 Prototype captivated social media, amassing over 60M views and setting a new benchmark for spatial experiences. John is obsessed with the dynamics of technology, collaboration, and service, and leveraging them to design positive futures.
- When:May 7 12:25 – 1:25 PM PDT
Designing positive futures
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Visual design
- Topic:Motion design
- Pronouns:She/her
Jude Sue is currently Head of Design at CoinTracker. She supports Product Designers, User Research, Content Designers and Visual Designers crafting crypto tax solutions that offer users peace of mind. Previously she was a Design Lead at Coinbase and led the redesign and relaunch of the new Wallet in 2022. Before Coinbase, Jude was a Product Designer at Instagram where she shaped the Stories product, serving hundreds of millions billions, of users.
- When:May 8 2:10 – 3:10 PM PDT
Trust is the currency
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:Research
- Topic:UX
- Pronouns:She/her
Kaitie is an Advocate at Figma, helping product people, marketers, and managers use Figma and FigJam with their teams. She is passionate about education, visual communication, and collaborative work—specifically finding ways to make work more fun, engaging and also a place where teammates can bond and form strong connections with one another. She works with organizations to adopt new ways of working that foster creativity and productivity.vity.
- Pronouns:He/him
Karri Saarinen is Co-founder and CEO at Linear, a purpose-built tool for planning and building products. Previously, he was the Principal Designer & co-creator of design systems at Airbnb and a founding designer at Coinbase.
- When:May 7 4:00 – 5:00 PM PDT
Crafting quality that endures
- Theme:Keynote
- Topic:Scalability
- Topic:Collaboration
- Pronouns:She/her
Katie Langerman is a designer specializing in design systems, currently contributing to GitHub’s Primer. She focuses on creating flexible, scalable systems that help bridge the gap between design and code. Katie is also passionate about fostering collaboration across teams, sharing insights on leadership as an individual contributor, and tackling challenges like design tokens and asynchronous teamwork.
- When:May 8 2:10 – 3:30 PM PDT
Connecting code with craft
- Theme:Dev & code
- Topic:Design
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:Collaboration
- Pronouns:He/him
Keegan McNamara designs and builds physical objects. His work has been featured in The Verge, designboom, and The Free Press. Once upon a time he wrote software and studied math.
- When:May 7 11:00 – 12:00 PM PDT
The maximalist theory of minimalism
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Hardware
- Topic:Independent
- Topic:UX
- Pronouns:She/her
Kelin Carolyn Zhang is a designer and educator creating software with a soul. Her practice currently centers around designing novel interfaces with & for generative AI models. She is a cofounder of Poetry Camera, which is a camera that writes poems of what it sees. She also serves as Adjunct Professor at RISD, teaching AI Software Design Studio in the Industrial Design department. She has over a decade of experience working with companies and clients of all sizes, including Apple, Twitter, Google, Meta, and Reuters. She received a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from MIT.
- When:May 7 11:00 – 12:00 PM PDT
Poetry Camera: How to fall back in love with technology
- Theme:Dev & code
- Topic:AI
- Topic:Hardware
- Topic:UX
- Pronouns:She/her
Kelly Hu works on Figma’s core design editor, where she embraces craft, systems-thinking, and a hacky mindset to shape powerful tools. She cares about building software that fosters human connection and drives social impact, thriving at the intersection of precision and possibility. Kelly graduated from UC Berkeley with a major in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, where she also discovered a strong interest in building products for nonprofits—her interdisciplinary background shapes her approach to building powerful, yet totally delightful products.
- Pronouns:He/him
Kevin Twohy is the Founder and Principal of Twohy Design Works – a design company that lives in the shrinking space between humans and computers. Clients include the New York Times, Mill, Sony, Good Inside, Kernel, Fitbit, MIRROR, Everlane, Gagosian Gallery, and the National Park Service.
- When:May 7 11:10 – 12:10 PM PDT
The shapes of creative work
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Brand
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:Independent
- Pronouns:She/her
Lauren Budorick is a software engineer at Figma, where she works on features across the Figma editor, especially all things vector geometry and text layout. Prior to joining Figma in 2018, she had a background in both graphics engineering and UX design. Outside of work she loves to ski, bike, make ceramics, and spend quality time with her fiancé and dogs.
- Pronouns:She/her
Lauren Manning is the Head of Product Design, UX, and User Research at the NFL, where she leads the creation of fan-first experiences for the flagship NFL Mobile app, NFL.com, and more for over 30M weekly users worldwide. With over 15 years of experience, she has a proven track record in defining and launching impactful digital products. Before joining the NFL, Lauren worked at renowned agencies like R/GA and Code and Theory, notably rebuilding the CNN Magic Wall for the 2020 election and redesigning the NBC Rio Olympics website, which achieved over 1 billion minutes streamed in just 17 days.
- When:May 7 12:25 – 1:25 PM PDT
No flags, just wins: reimagining the NFL app
- Theme:Product management
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:Scalability
- Topic:Visual design
- Pronouns:He/him
Lukas Oppermann is a Staff Systems Designer at GitHub specializing in design systems & design tokens. As a user experience professional and design system consultant he helps organizations build scalable design solutions. Lukas shares insights on design & design systems through his popular articles. His approach to problem-solving extends to crafting open-source tools and plugins to enhance the design workflows. Beyond crafting elegant system solutions, Lukas is a serious coffee nerd ☕️ and an avid boulderer.
- When:May 8 2:10 – 3:30 PM PDT
Connecting code with craft
- Theme:Dev & code
- Topic:Design
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:Collaboration
- Pronouns:He/him
Maxime is a frontend engineer based in New York. Over the past decade, he has worked with startups to build well-designed, performant web applications while continuously refining his skills in both design and engineering through his personal projects. His recent focus is on 3D, WebGL, and shaders—which he believes are the future of web. He shares his insights and experiments on his blog, exploring the intersection of code, math, and creativity.
- When:May 8 10:25 – 11:25 AM PDT
The future of the web is paved with shaders
- Theme:Dev & code
- Topic:UX
- Topic:Visual design
- Pronouns:She/her
Megan Metzger is a senior product designer at Forerunner, crafting tools that help local governments adapt to climate risks like floods, wildfires, and hurricanes. She specializes in user-centered, accessible solutions that enhance community resilience. Previously, Megan worked at Stripe as a product designer and design program manager, driving impactful user experiences, and at IDEO where she tackled complex challenges across a wide range of industries. Her unique approach blends technical expertise with empathy to address real-world challenges and foster lasting change.
- When:May 7 12:35 – 1:55 PM PDT
Designing in disaster
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Accessibility
- Topic:Research
- Topic:UX
- Topic:Strategy
- Pronouns:She/her
Michelle Lee is a Partner and Managing Director at IDEO, where she has applied her passion for play to leading interdisciplinary teams of designers and researchers in bringing engaging, interactive, and playful experiences to market. She believes in leveraging the principles of play to connect with people on a deeper emotional level that captivates, delights, and empowers. Immersed in a globally recognized user-centered design firm, Michelle's tenure includes research and product design roles.
- When:May 7 12:35 – 1:55 PM PDT
Designing for play and friction in a fast-paced world
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Collaboration
- Topic:UX
- Topic:Strategy
- Pronouns:He/him
Miguel “Miggi” Cardona is a Designer Advocate for Education at Figma. Prior to joining Figma, Miggi was an Assistant Professor at the College of Art and Design at RIT where he instructed courses in New Media Design and Visual Communications. At Figma, Miggi makes social media content, works on product marketing launches, and gives workshops and lectures to the education community. Outside of work, he enjoys sketching on coffee cups, collecting synthesizers, and producing zines.
Mike Abbink is Executive Director of Design Craft at GM, leading design quality across Software & Services, the GM Design Language, and Design Systems. Previously, he was Executive Creative Director at IBM, where he led projects like IBM Plex®, the IBM Design Language, and the Carbon Design System. Abbink has also been Design Director at Apple and Creative Director at Wolff Olins, Saffron, and MoMA. He holds a BFA from Art Center College of Design.
- When:May 7 1:10 – 1:55 PM PDT
The evolution of brand identities
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Brand
- Topic:AI
- Topic:Strategy
Mike McDowell is a Senior Presales Solutions Consultant at UserTesting, the leading platform for real-time qualitative customer feedback. With over 25 years of e-commerce experience, he helps the world’s largest organizations enhance customer experiences, increase revenue, and mitigate risk across both digital and physical spaces. As the author of "Demotainment," Mike specializes in delivering engaging, high-impact demos that captivate audiences and drive results. He has also created and published a video series featuring over 200 tips and mini-demos, released weekly on YouTube and LinkedIn.
- When:May 7 12:20 – 12:40 PM PDT
UserTesting x Figma: faster feedback, smarter design
- Theme:Design craft
- Pronouns:He/him
Mike Smith co-founded Smith & Diction with his partner, Chara, a decade ago. The Philadelphia-based design studio specializes in creating thoughtful identities for imaginative clients. Mike is most well-known for his team's rebrand of Perplexity, and for making his working Figma files public for anyone on the internet to see. Mike leads all creative and design at Smith & Diction—working both as creative director and a lead designer on every project.
- When:May 8 2:10 – 3:10 PM PDT
The wild west of collaborative brand design
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Brand
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:Collaboration
- Pronouns:She/her
Natasha is a Product Designer at Figma, where she has helped bring AI tools like Jambot, FigJam Template Generation, and the Figma Slides Tone Dial to life. Passionate about making creative tools user-friendly, she excels in product strategy, storytelling, and interaction design. Before Figma, Natasha honed her skills at Twitter and various startups and design agencies in Toronto.
- Pronouns:He/him
Ned Dwyer is the Co-founder and CEO of Great Question, the all-in-one UX research platform designed to democratize research at scale. After three successful exits as a founder, Ned launched his biggest passion project to date: helping enterprise teams better understand their users. Ned has led Great Question in empowering UX researchers, designers, and product teams to collaborate seamlessly and uncover the insights needed to build something great.
- Pronouns:He/him
Nick is the Director of Front End Development at One North. When not trying to talk design systems with anyone who will engage, he enjoys bowling and making music.
- When:May 8 2:10 – 3:30 PM PDT
Inclusive development through web components
- Theme:Dev & code
- Topic:Design
- Topic:Collaboration
- Topic:UX
- Pronouns:He/him
Niko is recently a product designer turned product manager at Figma. He’s been working on Prototyping within Figma since 2018 and unless you have three hours of time, don’t ask him about the future of design tools.
Noah Silverstein is the GTM Lead for Coda Brain. A former engineer, Noah brings a product-focused mindset to all things marketing, sales, and operations. Most recently, he’s focused on helping make the slog of modern work just a little bit more magical with the power of enterprise AI.
- When:May 7 1:35 – 1:55 PM PDT
Figma + Coda Brain: Design systems in an AI first ecosystem
- Theme:Design craft
- Pronouns:He/him
Nolan Perkins is a Lead Product Designer, content creator, and founder of Rad Collab. He’s spent over 14 years helping early-stage startups by bringing their ideas from 0 to 1. After building TaskTree by crowd-sourcing feedback through comments, Nolan has been on a mission to help startups connect their idea to the right audience by building in public on social media.
- When:May 7 2:25 – 3:45 PM PDT
Building in public with Figma: designers should be creators
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Collaboration
- Topic:UX
- Topic:Research
- Pronouns:He/him
Parteek is a designer based in New York. Currently he's starting up his next company. Very recently he helped lead design + product at Okta after they acquired his company Uno. Prior to Uno, he helped create Form, a design prototyping tool which was later acquired by Google. At Google, Parteek was a designer on the Material Design and Google Hardware teams. And in the much further past, he collaborated with Lady Gaga for her ARTPOP album. Outside of work, he enjoys riding bicycles around NYC and dabbling in improv comedy.
- When:May 7 2:25 – 3:45 PM PDT
Just... go for it!
- Theme:Product building
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:Independent
Phi is a first-generation Viet-Texan from a small town outside Houston. His design career spans agencies and in-house teams, where he's developed a versatile approach to both digital and physical media. At Perplexity, he's extended the company's visual language, translating complex concepts into accessible art using AI in his workflow. His perspective is shaped by nature and his kids, who remind him to see the world with fresh eyes.
- When:May 7 1:10 – 1:55 PM PDT
The evolution of brand identities
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Brand
- Topic:AI
- Topic:Strategy
- Pronouns:She/her
Raylene Yung is an executive who has worked across private and public sectors. She previously served in the Biden-Harris Administration, leading programs investing over $27 billion to modernize government technology and accelerate clean energy deployment. Yung is a Board Member and was founding CEO at U.S. Digital Response, a technology nonprofit that supports hundreds of government partners. Yung also led the development of large-scale software systems in Engineering and Product executive roles at Facebook and Stripe. Yung holds a B.S and M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University.
- When:May 8 1:00 – 2:00 PM PDT
Tech as a playbook, not as the solution
- Theme:Product building
- Topic:Strategy
- Topic:Scalability
- Pronouns:He/him
Rehan leads design for a broad range of tools used by artists and filmmakers at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Working closely with the artists and engineers to bring cutting-edge computer graphics technology to intuitive and artist-focused tools. As a design generalist, Rehan works across the full product lifecycle from concept to launch and refinement while championing best practices in user experience throughout the Studio. Previous to joining Walt Disney Animation Studios, Rehan led design across consumer and enterprise products in the healthcare and sports technology fields.
- When:May 7 12:25 – 1:25 PM PDT
And...cut! The design process behind animation tools
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Motion design
- Topic:Collaboration
- Topic:Strategy
- Pronouns:He/him
Ricardo is an accomplished design leader with over a decade of experience in the intersections of design, technology, and education. Having held key roles at industry-leading companies such as Dropbox, Shopify, and Mozilla Firefox, he has successfully led large teams across challenges of scale while executing strategies that have driven business value and customer delight. Ricardo’s leadership is rooted in courage, happiness of pursuit, and leadership from the heart.
- When:May 7 12:35 – 1:55 PM PDT
Crossing the chasm between quality and performance
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Collaboration
- Topic:UX
- Topic:Strategy
- Pronouns:He/Him
Rogie is an artist, designer and programmer, that’s been working at Figma for 5 years, pushing to make the product better through listening to the Figma community as a Designer Advocate. As an advocate, he’s fueled by connecting the community and elevating the voices of designers across the world. Inspired by animation and cartoons as a kid, horror films, and Flash websites, he’s obsessed with unique experiences and has been pushing to make design fun again with SVG, Illustrations and WebGL. Oh, and he loves making Figma plugins to bring more creativity to the people.
- Pronouns:She/her
Ruchita is a product designer at Pixar Animation Studios, where she drives product, design, and research for animation and VFX tools that empower the artists behind the studio’s iconic films. Ruchita focuses on creating sustainable and accessible user-centered systems that enhance workflows in complex environments. She’s passionate about interaction patterns, ergonomics, design systems, and creating joyful experiences with technology. Ruchita previously worked at Blizzard Entertainment’s internal platforms and design systems and has a background in startups, payments and e-commerce.
- When:May 7 12:25 – 1:25 PM PDT
And...cut! The design process behind animation tools
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Motion design
- Topic:Collaboration
- Topic:Strategy
- Pronouns:He/him
Ryan Hudson-Peralta is the Creative Director of Product at Rocket, co-founder of Equal Accessibility, LLC, and an inventor and patent holder. Born without hands and unable to walk, he has dedicated his career to breaking barriers in design and accessibility. As a designer, speaker, and consultant, Ryan helps businesses go beyond compliance to create truly inclusive experiences. Through his work, inventions, speaking engagements, and mentorships, he advocates for accessibility that empowers everyone to live, work, and thrive independently.
- Pronouns:He/him
Ryan is a designer obsessed with play, learning, and inventing. He's one of the creators of Poetry Camera, and the designer at Sudowrite. Earlier, he worked at Google ATAP where he prototyped sci-fi AI hardware. He also created FlipTales, a roleplaying game which was funded on Kickstarter. Before that, he was a product designer at littleBits.
- When:May 7 11:00 – 12:00 PM PDT
Poetry Camera: How to fall back in love with technology
- Theme:Dev & code
- Topic:AI
- Topic:Hardware
- Topic:UX
- Pronouns:He/him
Ryan Putnam is an artist and designer currently working at Perplexity AI. His work celebrates curiosity, honesty, and creative exploration. With a multidisciplinary practice spanning digital design and physical ceramics, Ryan creates work that bridges the gap between digital and tactile experiences. His distinctive aesthetic has attracted clients across tech and creative industries. Ryan's approach emphasizes the value of creative play and exploration as essential elements of the design process.
- When:May 7 1:10 – 1:55 PM PDT
The evolution of brand identities
- Theme:Design craft
- Topic:Brand
- Topic:AI
- Topic:Strategy
- Pronouns:He/him
Steve is the Co-founder and CEO of Builder.io and the creator of the Mitosis open-source project
- Pronouns:She/her
Subham builds products at Ramp, currently overseeing all financial products, intelligence, money movement platform, internationalization, and monetization product teams. She’s helped Ramp evolve beyond the flagship card, incubating 0-1 products such as Ramp Travel, Flex, Ramp Vendor Network, AR. Prior to Ramp, Subham was at Square (aka Block) where she oversaw all aspects of the P&L for Square Payments (North America), Business Banking, and Terminal (Point of Sale). She started her career in private equity at Vista Equity Partners, investing across enterprise SaaS and fintech.
- When:May 7 2:15 – 3:15 PM PDT
When products must die
- Theme:Product building
- Topic:Collaboration
- Topic:Strategy
- Pronouns:She/her
Tal is an experienced product leader, with a track record of centering development around the user. At Evinced, where she is a Group Product Manager, Tal works at the forefront of applying technology to making websites and mobile apps more inclusive, beginning with the design process itself. Prior to Evinced, Tal managed products at vcita, the small business platform; Gett, the leading ride-hailing app in Israel; and LivePerson, the conversational AI platform for enterprise customer service. Tal holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Biology, as well as an MBA, from Tel Aviv University.
- Pronouns:He/him
Tim has been a software designer for over two decades, but still approaches each project with the energy and clumsiness of a six month old puppy. Previous stints included Gowalla (twice, RIP), Dropbox, Abstract and Instagram. If you want to kill the rest of your day, ask Tim anything about iconography or visual noise (he has a mathematical equation for it).
- Pronouns:He/him
Wojtek is an experienced Senior Product Designer at Nord Security, global cybersecurity leader. At Nord, he plays a key role in shaping the UX of the flagship password manager, turning complex strategies into impactful, user-focused features. Wojtek blends a research-driven mindset with an academic background in art, bridging the ""serious” and “creative” sides of design. Beyond work, Wojtek is a familiar face in the design community, recognized for frequently delivering detailed, fun, and visually engaging talks, as well as organizing events and mentoring aspiring professionals or founders.
- When:May 7 2:15 – 3:15 PM PDT
Pitch perfect: how to present ideas to cut through the noise
- Theme:Product building
- Topic:Collaboration
- Topic:Strategy