Yi Zhang, VIA Social Innovation Programs Director
Yi began her own immersion in social innovation and entrepreneurship during her sophomore year of college when she helped organize the International Development Design Summit at MIT bringing 80 people from 30 countries to build solutions for the world's pressing challenges. In the years since then, She's continued to explore creative and sustainable ways to address social issues through working and volunteering around the world, including combating poverty with the UNDP in Costa Rica, creating green jobs in Cleveland and connecting new immigrants with economic opportunity in the Bay Area. She is also passionate about the potential for design-thinking to inspire empathetic and effective solutions to social issues and has led a number of trainings in design-thinking and social innovation. She is excited to share some of the most innovative and inspiring aspects of this field and also to be a part of participants' journeys of creative changemaking during this program.