Founder, Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation
Judging Category: Concepts
http://incubator.pratt.edu
Turning designers into design entrepreneurs. Debera founded the Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation in 2002 during her tenure as chair of the Industrial Design program. Under her leadership the Incubator has helped launch 25 design driven enterprises in three sectors; clean energy, fashion and design. The Incubator provides affordable space, mentorship and business programming in a collaborative community of social entrepreneurs. The Incubator also works with industry and non-profit organizations by bringing the creative design process into environmentally and socially relevant projects.
Debera also leads Pratt’s commitment to integrate sustainability into academics in her role as Academic Director of the Center for Sustainable Design Studies (CSDS). Founded in 2008, CSDS serves as a resource for faculty development and pre-college education in the NYC region. The CSDS also operates an interdisciplinary research/thesis lab that supports students projects that promote a healthy, just and sustainable world through design, architecture and urban planning. Debera coordinates the groundbreaking Partnership for Academic Leadership in Sustainability (PALS), a cohort of educators that represent 33 art and design schools across North America. The PALS fellows are actively collaborating, sharing and leveraging resources to advance sustainability in art and design education.
