The worldviews we build with: Why good design starts in the spirit

This event will be online on YouTube and in-person (New York City). The speaker and live stream starts at 7:30 pm ET. In-person attendees may arrive as early as 7 pm ET. If arriving late, please leave a comment on this page and someone will come down ASAP.

Description
Every product we ship carries a worldview. "Efficiency is paramount." "Scale is the goal." "User engagement is the gateway.” Most of us don’t pause to reflect on what foundations we're building within ourselves. Stuff that feels too nebulous and exists out there, instead of in us, in here.

This isn't a talk about "bad actors." It's about the rest of us. The well-intentioned designers, PMs, and engineers whose unexamined defaults quietly shape what gets built, who it serves, and who it harms.

Drawing on indigenous learnings from Aotearoa New Zealand, and examples from accessibility and AI design, we'll explore what happens when we treat worldview work as foundational rather than optional.

Elina Ashimbayeva is determined to find hope amid humanity's existential crisis! Join Elina! This session will focus on examples and allow people to interact with each other to reflect on our individual and team practices and worldviews.
Because you can't change a practice without first changing the soil it grows in.

Attendees will leave with ...

A clearer view of the worldviews running underneath your own work Language to name them with your team
Examples of how different worldviews produce radically different products - especially in AI and accessibility A small set of tools and prompts for doing worldview work as part of practice, not separate from it.

Presenter bio
Elina Ashimbayeva is a product manager, community builder, and facilitator with over a decade of work across healthcare, education, and social impact. Originally from Kazakhstan and Aotearoa New Zealand, she is now based in New York. Elina has led