Keynote Speaker
Alice Rawsthorn is an award-winning design critic and author, whose books include Design as an Attitude, Hello World: Where Design Meets Life and Design Emergency: Building a Better Future, co-written with Paola Antonelli, senior curator of design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Alice’s weekly design column for The New York Times was syndicated worldwide for over a decade. In all her work, she champions design’s potential as a social, political, cultural and ecological tool.
Born in Manchester and based in London, Alice graduated in law and art history from Cambridge University. As a Financial Times journalist for over a decade, she was a foreign correspondent in Paris and pioneered the FT’s coverage of the creative industries. Alice has spoken on design at global events including TED and the World Economic Forum’s annual meetings in Davos. Active in the arts, she has chaired the boards of trustees at Chisenhale Gallery, Hepworth Wakefield and the contemporary dance group, Michael Clark Company, and been a trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery and Arts Council England. Together with Paola, Alice is a co-founder of the Design Emergency podcast, YouTube channel and research platform, which investigates design’s role in forging a fairer future.