Day of Design: Connect

Andy Reischling is a writer and strategist at IDEO. He has helped launch the first truly global self-care brand with Bollywood’s biggest star, published essays on topics ranging from productive friction and search modalities to information architecture, poetry, and listening, and presented on the intersection of design and jiu jitsu. His work spans brand strategies, campaigns, and product launches and redesigns for Fortune 50 companies.

Andy often employs unconventional methods—setting shoes on fire, dropping cement blocks off buildings, or singing H-Town’s “Emotions” to a room full of executives—to spark creativity. He partners with clients exploring new directions, combining copywriting, storytelling, brand and product strategy, UX and content design, and user research to produce rigorously creative work that drives top-line growth.

Libby Hsu graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and received master's degrees in structural engineering and building technology from MIT. She became involved with MIT D-Lab by taking the D-Lab: Schools class and traveling to Cambodia to work on alternative concretes.

Now she leads D-Lab's academic program by managing its teaching team, creating and promoting a coherent strategy for D-Lab's academic offerings at MIT, aligning D-Lab's educational mission with its research and practice work around the world, and building instructors' capacity to provide transformative educational experiences to their students.

Libby is also an educator who teaches D-Lab: Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene and D-Lab: Development; coordinates D-Lab's student work in many countries including Mexico, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic; and trains D-Lab trip leaders who are taking students to the field. She has worked with dozens of students on projects related to sanitation, water quality, education, and participatory design; and is also a first-year adviser.

She speaks German and Spanish, has training as a technical editor, and is an avid knitter, as well as a certified Wilderness First Responder. Libby and her husband are the Heads of House at MIT's Random Hall.

Heewon Lee is an industrial designer and educator deeply committed to utilizing design education for humanitarian and developmental purposes. As a member of the MIT D-Lab Humanitarian Innovation team, Heewon focuses on designing and managing projects aimed at enhancing creative capacity among youth in low-resource settings.

Currently, Heewon is dedicated to exploring the potential applications of repurposed electronic devices in various developmental sectors, including agriculture, education, health, and energy. Through collaborative efforts with community innovators in northern Uganda's refugee camps and rural areas of Tanzania, he strives to co-design solutions that improve local technologies and positively impact businesses and lives.

Originally from South Korea, Heewon completed a master's degree in Interaction Design at the Umeå Institute of Design and later engaged in PhD coursework at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST). Throughout his career, he has been involved in diverse projects encompassing product design, interaction design, and graphic design.

Heewon shares his expertise as a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), teaching courses such as Mobiles for Development (MIT D-Lab), Product Design and Development (MIT Sloan School of Management), Humanitarian Innovation Design (RISD), and MIT Studio (RISD). Outside of his professional endeavors, Heewon enjoys rock climbing and restoring automobiles in his leisure time.