Simon Herzog

Simon is a translator – between design and business, across cultural boundaries, and between strategic and detail-oriented approaches. As the founder of Professional Programmes and the Nest Incubator at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID), he has led the institute's efforts to create a model for design-driven startup incubation and to spread human-centered design education around the world.

At the camp Simon will be talking about empathy in design, especially applied to unusual or difficult user groups. After working in a prison for drug addicts, and with a background in sociology from Columbia University where he worked with gang members and sex workers, he has developed an approach to design ethnography and listening that has helped him in environments from rural China to Danish cancer wards.

Simon's career has taken him from field work to early-stage investing and venture capital to interaction and service design at CIID and companies around the world. Privately he is most excited about medieval history, birds of prey, and collecting airplane safety cards.