Creative Futures: Design Thinking for Community Empowerment

Celebrate the creativity and innovation of Detroit's young designers with Slalom, a professional services and business consulting company, and buildOn, a non-profit organization focused on breaking the cycle of poverty through education and service.

During the summer of 2025, Slalom hosted a series of events aimed at empowering budding designers in the buildOn program to address pressing issues in their communities through creative problem-solving techniques. These events harnessed the power of design thinking as a tool to enact positive change. Students were challenged to identify issues facing their communities, conduct contextual research to intimately understand the problem first-hand, and prototype a solution.

The outcome of this work will be showcased at this event, part of the Detroit Month of Design. Students will share stories of applying the design thinking framework to tackle issues in their community. A discussion with local leaders on the role of design in creating impactful change…