DesignChat is a weekly live-video chat with the design community and a special guest. This post will also be a weekly event, appearing on Mondays to introduce the special guest and show some of their work. Join us on Wednesday, April 7th for a live video broadcast with the Design Revolution Road Show at http://designchat.info/chat!

The Design Revolution Road Show is a traveling exhibition and lecture series bringing “product design that empowers” to 35 high schools and university design programs across the nation in the Spring of 2010. A Project H Design initiative, the road show will feature an Airstream trailer exhibition of 40 humanitarian design solutions that have been showcased in the book Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People.

The programming will bring the evidence of and tools for design for social impact to the doorsteps of students, with the ultimate goal of enabling and empowering the next generation of creative problem-solvers to apply their skills to the world’s most pressing problems and improve life on a global scale.

Project H founder Emily Pilloton and project manager Matthew Miller will be traveling and living in the Airstream for the duration of the Design Revolution Road Show. Emily and Matt will give presentations at each stop, host the exhibition, and provide walk-throughs and demonstrations in the exhibition trailer space.

On April 7th, they will stop at SamataMason for DesignChat, and we will do a live broadcast of their presentation!

Project H Design connects the power of design to the people who need it most, and the places where it can make a real and lasting difference.

We are a team of designers, architects, and builders engaging locally through partnerships with social service organizations, communities, and schools to improve the quality of life for the socially overlooked. Our five-tenet design process (There is no design without action; We design WITH, not FOR; We document, share and measure; We start locally and scale globally, We design systems, not stuff) results in simple and effective design solutions for those without access to creative capital.

Our scalable long-term initiatives focus on improving environments, services, products, and experiences for youth and K-12 education institutions in the US through systems-level design thinking and deep community engagements.

WE BELIEVE DESIGN CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.

Project H is a California-based nonprofit with a second location in Bertie County, North Carolina that focuses on Design For Education initiatives. We are a 501c3 organization; all donations made after January 8, 2008 are tax-deductible. View the Project H website here.

Emily Pilloton is the Founder and Executive Director of Project H Design. Trained in architecture at UC Berkeley and product design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she started Project H to provide a conduit and catalyst for need-based design that empowers individuals, communities, and economies. Former editor of Inhabitat.com, writer, California girl and unwavering optimist, she has written for ID, GOOD, ReadyMade, taught design theory, and lectures worldwide about new social impact imperatives for the product design industry. Her book, “Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People,” is a compendium of and call-to-action for design for social impact. When she isn’t traveling or emailing, Emily enjoys trivia games and baking/eating cupcakes.

West Virginia born and bred, Matthew Miller is an accomplished fabricator and metalworker. He has worked for many emerging practices, from Architecture for Humanity and HousingOperative to William Massie. Matthew studied at the Bauhaus, holds an undergraduate degree in architecture from the University of Tennessee and a Masters in Architecture from Cranbrook. He has taught at the College of Creative Studies, Lawrence Technological University, RISD, and UC Berkeley. He designed and built the Kutamba School in Uganda, with whom Project H has worked for the Design For Education: Learning Landscape project, and has since manages Project H built initiatives including the Bertie County Schools’ computer labs.