Classes, Workshops, and Speaking Engagements
Foossa offers workshops, classes and speaking engagements about social innovation, storytelling, entrepreneurship, and community-centered design.
Our public classes and workshops are listed here. We also conduct custom trainings and talks for organizations.
Event Calendar
Storytelling for Social Impact - Course at NYU School of Professional Studies
March 2017 and again June 2017
Design Thinking Fundamentals - Online course at the Parsons School of Design at The New School
March-April 2017
Redefining Borders - Workshop at the Parsons Design Intelligence Conference
April 1, 2017
Community-Building for Entrepreneurs - Workshop at Harvard i-Lab
April 13, 2017
DoTank NYC: How might we design the future of storefronts & urban streetscapes?
Weekends in June-July 2017
Strategic Design Management - 2 Week Course at Parsons (NYC) and Central Saint Martins (London)
June 24-July 7, 2017
Designing for Financial Empowerment - Public lecture in Philadelphia
November 17, 2017
Sample Workshop Descriptions
Storytelling for Social Change
In this half-day workshop, we explore the structures and narrative strategies used by social change practitioners for building community and inspiring action. We will address issues of voice, agency, and participation in social change storytelling and critically examine some of the challenges and limits of current strategies and models. Participants will also get the chance to work in groups to practice mapping and analyzing social change storytelling strategies.
Designing Digital Community
In this workshop, participants get an overview of the components, structures, and strategies for building online communities of shared interest. Participants learn how to use "off the shelf" participatory tools to power their own projects, including social networks, collaborative content creation/curation, crowdfunding, and online petitions.
Over the course of the workshop (two half-day sessions scheduled two weeks apart) participants will work in groups to conceive, prototype, and launch participatory online campaigns that result in some sort of concrete real-world outcome. No coding or previous technical experience is required.
Design Thyself
This workshop brings design thinking and design doing to a personal level. Throughout the course we will each design and document an intentional and proactive personal change in our lives. It could be learning a new skill, acquiring a new habit, or quitting an old one.
The personal change could be related to health, sports, language learning, cooking, reading, or emotional/spiritual/creative practice. The projects should be related to personal growth and self-mastery, but also light-hearted, fun, and social. Think of it as part New Year's resolution, part school science project (where you are your own guinea pig), and part reality show.