Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast

What if reupholstering a chair could cut your carbon footprint by 80%? In this episode of Everything Is a Prototype, Kriss Kokoefer, founder of 2080 Reuse, shares how she’s building a whole new category at the intersection of circular economy, commercial interiors, and design-led innovation...with help from DMBA students and alumni.

Kriss opens up about pivoting careers, launching (and selling) a century-old upholstery business, and her mission to make reuse the easy button for businesses. We talk about building trust, embracing uncertainty, and why good project management might just be the secret weapon for sustainability.

This is one for the builders, designers, and anyone curious about how to scale impact through systems, not just products.

 THE FUTURE OF THINGS: AI as a new material for Design. 

On Saturday, Apr 5, chairs from the Design Division at CCA co-moderated an insightful panel discussion that explored the transformative role of design in shaping the future of products, services, and systems enabled by generative, agentic, and distributed physical AI. Moving beyond the conventional focus on AI as a set of tools for designing, our expert panelists discussed how designers can reimagine and craft the next generation of "things"—from rethinking transportation and healthcare to reinventing how we cook, shop, communicate, entertain, and/or safeguard our communities from natural disasters. This conversation highlighted design’s power to envision future lifestyles, steer technological evolution, and generate lasting value for communities and our planet.

Panelists:

Lauren Bedal / ArchetypeAI - Design, Product Lead

Tim Belonax / Anthropic - Brand

TJ McLeish / CCA MDes Faculty + AI Expert

Karl Willis / Autodesk - Senior Research Manager

Moderators:

Justin Lokitz, DMBA and Elena Pacenti, MDes

In this episode, we break down innovation to its very core with Rio Cruz Morales, a DMBA, multi-time startup founder, and Senior Product Manager of AI Foundations @ Velocity Black.

Rio is a product and innovation expert, who created the Product Experimentation Method and framework to help others do what they do. And...what's so cool about Rio, is they found the DMBA by happenstance. In a word, Rio is awesome!

In this episode, we get deep into the startup space with AK Raja, a DMBA alum and former EY Design Strategist, and JJ Velez, a former software engineer from Apple. This dynamic duo is working on Lawgical, a tech startup focused on helping law firms (and companies) streamline their immigration paperwork. Check them out here: https://lawgical.app/

This entire episode is one big prototype. Rather than talk to real humans, we’ve asked Google’s NotebookLM tool to create a discussion around the value of the DMBA. I think the insights are pretty spot on. What do you think? 

In this episode, we dive deep into design strategy with Izzy Shu, Dave Korstad, and Tony Jimenez, the DMBA alumni behind the amazing alternative milk brand JOI. Enjoy!

Hi, welcome to Everything Is a Prototype, The DMBA podcast, where we talk all things design strategy…and prototypes. In this episode, Jinney Kho, a former interior architect and recent DMBA grad, talks about her journey and how she has designed a new path as a design strategist and startup founder. Enjoy! 

Hi, welcome to Everything Is a Prototype, The DMBA podcast, where we talk all things design strategy…and prototypes. In this episode, Jo Marini, a DMBA alum, professor, and kickass entrepreneur, discusses her amazing new company Mothership Materials, and how she plans on saving the world. Enjoy!

In this exciting episode, Kirsten, Michelle, Bhumika, and Julia, current DMBA students (C15s), discuss how the DMBA is helping them to design their next lives and careers and why they decided to co-create the first ever Career Design Club within the DMBA…which helps other DMBA students design their own next thing. Enjoy! 

In many respects, Franzi Sessler and Tony Gui, are typical DMBAs. They traveled from far and wide to get to San Francisco to join a program and community that they hoped would help them redesign their lives. Typical right?

But, like ALL DMBAs, Franzi's and Tony's stories are so much more than typical! In this episode -- newly minted as "Everything is a Prototype: The DMBA Podcast" (thank you for the suggestion Anita Chordia!) -- Franzi and Tony talk about their lives before the DMBA and just how much their experiences in the program changed them...and, of course, how they built a thriving business, called Kreatives, by prototyping everything along the way.

Enjoy!

Though Andy Greenwood is 100% an audio engineer, in many respects he's like the Clark Kent/Superman of the audio engineering world. Though he may show up with all of the real-world experience and chops of a world-class engineer, he uses his design strategy superpowers and creative confidence to help break down walls and get others to think about the human experience + business...even if they didn't think that was their job.

In this fun conversation, we discuss what it's like being a design strategist with an audio engineer title at Apple and how Andy spends his free time, mixing audio at Jazz fest in New Orleans, where he recently won a Grammy for Best Regional Roots Music Album, for his work with Ranky Tanky.

Like many DMBAs, Elainea de Vera wasn't looking for a "regular" MBA education when she found the DMBA. Rather, she knew she needed something different. And...what a difference the DMBA has made in her life (and in the lives around her...including all of us DMBAs)!

Though Elainea started the DMBA managing large corporate events for giant tech companies, by the time she graduated she had already moved on, co-founding the direct-to-consumer startup, Adara Rituals, while she was still in the program.

In this episode, we dig into what it was like to have COVID during her final R5 Venture Showcase pitch as well as dive into the deep end of global logistics without ever pushing pause. Enjoy!

To a T, 98% of people enroll in the DMBA in order to design their next lives. For Cami Reyes and Ben Lang, both C12s, it was no different. Not only did they come into the DMBA doing totally different things (professionally), they designed and launched a company, called Native Chats, that has them scaling a startup with global reach. Suffice to say, using tools and connections from their past lives and the DMBA, they're working on nothing less than democratizing communication on a global scale. 

In this podcast we discuss what it was like creating something from nothing while DMBA students, and now working with a global team to get their technology/value into the hands of billions. If that's not enough, Ben and Cami are democratizing their WeFunder crowdfunding campaign for Native Chats, giving everyone a chance to share in the value being created and exchanged.

On this episode of the DMBA Podcast we speak with our super special guest, Maya Joseph-Goteiner, a DMBA alum (C4), super curious UX researcher, and design leader at Google, about her journey from the art world to Google. Maya has lots to say about how the DMBA helped her pivot her career and find the creative confidence and leadership skills to truly hone her passion as a researcher. Enjoy!

If you know Ismar, you know he's a badass problem solver. In fact, as we talk about on this episode of The DMBA Podcast, Ismar only realized that problem-solving was his core strength once he was deep into the DMBA. Today, Ismar uses his problem-solving and strategic badassery as the senior leader of innovation at Ancestry, where he's been instrumental in prototyping his way to the top.

Listen here to get to know more about Ismar and what makes him tick!

Meet Shira Kates, a design leader at Google, ambiguity expert, curiosity pioneer, partner, and mother of two. Shira grew up in New England in a family of academics; most of her family either have PhDs and/or were/are college professors. So, needless to say, the curiosity and life-long learner genes run DEEP.

In this episode, we discuss Shira’s move to the Bay Area in 1997, right at the height of the (O.G.) Dot Com boom and how she got swept up in the ensuing hiring spree, doing just about anything she was asked to do. Like many DMBAs, Shira’s a master of ambiguity, and often took on roles that she was probably under-qualified for, but learned quickly and excelled at just about everything thrown her way.