In 2026, after nearly 90 years, the Institute of Design was folded into Illinois Tech's School of Design & Society.
This website is an archive of the impactful and inspirational work produced by the ID community before that transition.

László Moholy-Nagy opened the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937, treating design as a discipline that was teachable, testable, and consequential. Nine decades on, its scope had widened from the things people use to the systems they depend on: hospitals, government agencies, classrooms, supply chains, digital platforms. Along the way, ID community members developed the published research, methods, and frameworks that designers rely on every day.

Chief among them is human-centered design: close attention to how people actually live, and advocacy for what that research reveals. It shaped designers who are comfortable with complexity and ambiguity: curious, rigorous, inclusive, and stubbornly optimistic about design's ability to change the systems that shape our lives.

To every one of them, who taught, studied, built, critiqued, and stayed late in the studio: thank you, and keep designing.

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USAID Chief Innovation Officer Visits ID

Mohamed Abdel-Kader Discussed Innovation, Technology, And Research with ID Community

October 19, 2023

USAID visits ID
Mohamed Abdel-Kader

Mohamed Abdel-Kader

The Institute of Design welcomed Mohamed Abdel-Kader, chief innovation officer and executive director for the Innovation, Technology, And Research (ITR) Hub at the United States Agency for International Development.

Abdel-Kader presented “Innovation, Technology, and Research: Opportunities and Challenges to International Development” to members of the ID and Illinois Tech communities on Wednesday, October 18, at the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship.

Providing a summary of his agency’s mission and work, Abdel-Kader outlined why ID students and designers might be interested in international development and how they could contribute.

“
We need people with a diversity of backgrounds. We need people like you.
—Mohamed Abdel-Kader
USAID logo

Mohamed Abdel-Kader oversees various agency mechanisms to promote the application of innovation, technology, and research for greater aid effectiveness within USAID and the inter-agency, and with partners in the international development community, private sector, and civil society.

Associate Professor of Environmental Management and Sustainability Weslynne Ashton, also co-director of ID’s Food Systems Action Lab, invited Abdel-Kader to speak at ID and provided introductions.

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