Three RIT Industrial Design Students Organize National Conference

Top design professionals from across the U.S. will speak at the Nov. 21-22 event

Three senior Rochester Institute of Technology industrial design students—Sam Aquillano, Laura “Ori” Fowler and Donald Lehman—decided to take a more active role in their education. Disappointed by sub-par national design conferences they had attended in the past, the trio decided to organize a more meaningful and inspirational conference on their own.

Thought at Work was born—the first-ever national industrial design student conference at the Henrietta campus. The Nov. 21-22 event will be held in the Student Alumni Union’s Ingle Auditorium. Lecturers include world-renowned designers, architects, researchers and authors such as:

• Yves Behar: founder and principal designer of fuseproject, San Francisc
• John Christakos: president, designer and co-founder of Blue Dot furniture design, Minneapolis
• Duane Smith and Stefane Barbeau: co-founders of Vessel housewares design, Boston
• Cameron Sinclair: founder of Architecture for Humanity

  As news about the two-day forum quickly spread across RIT and beyond, the enterprising entrepreneurs made some fast decisions—charging affordable entry fees of $100 for professionals, $65 for students—and literally opening the conference doors by “design.”

  “We started to realize that the content we are providing is of interest not to just design students, but to engineering students and the professional community as well,” says Lehman.

  Aquillano adds, “We would have missed a major opportunity for all these different fields to sit down and talk about how we can better collaborate.”

  Registration for the conference is available on the Web at www.thoughtatwork.com. For photo opportunities or to schedule interviews with students or lecturers, call 475-4951.