(Different length speaker bios are available on my speaker page)
Hello. I’m Ame (sounds like “Amy”). I’m a designer, researcher, and creative technologist interested in how technology encodes values and can shift power. I have worked on three continents and been part of organizations ranging from early-stage startups to Global 500 companies. I’m currently a creative leader at Neol and a senior fellow at Superbloom. Contact me at hello@ameelliott.com to discuss freelance projects or speaking engagements.
What I do:
User Experience Design/Research
I conducted 30 hours of interviews on AI (Large Language Model integration) for online education resulting in strategic recommendations. As part of the Tech Policy Design Lab’s project on Deceptive Design, I led a series of workshops that brought together 117 stakeholders from 31 countries.Coaching
Since 2017 I have coached more than 50 teams on UX, research, communication, and product strategy challenges, with an emphasis on supporting open source and public interest tech projects. Partners include the Alan Turing Institute, Open Tech Fund, and PrototypeFund.de (supported by the German Ministry of Education and Research).Education/Facilitation
I developed an original course, “User Experience Design & Privacy Policy” for early stage researchers in the EU Horizon 2020 Open Design of Trusted Things programme/Ph.D. students of the University of Northumbria, UK and have taught at the University of California, Berkeley, University of Colorado, Boulder, and the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. I led the IDEO team that created the Innovator’s Accelerator, an online social learning platform taught by Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School. More than 8,000 participants have taken part in workshops and corporate trainings I’ve led.
My journey:
I have a Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction from the University of California, Berkeley, and spent five years as a research scientist in Silicon Valley developing early Internet of Things applications. My work on computer vision/machine learning and recommender systems led to eight patents, and I developed experimental hardware at the Computing Science Lab at Xerox PARC. Unsatisfied with papers and patents as the primary measure of impact, I left to work closer to industry.
At IDEO San Francisco I worked on technology strategy projects for Global 500 clients (Acer, Ericsson, Fuji-Xerox, HP, Samsung) and was satisfied to see products I worked on used by millions of people and winning design awards. However, I developed a crisis of confidence in surveillance capitalism that propelled me to join a non-profit organization working on privacy-preserving technologies and relocate to Berlin.
As Design Director for Simply Secure (rebranded as Superbloom in 2022), I worked with civil society organizations on projects relating to algorithmic accountability (Mozilla’s Rally), on combatting Dark Patterns for the World Wide Web Foundation, and on the implications of GDPR implementation in practice. I was recognized as one of Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business for my work on designing for trust.
After eight years of growing the organization, I stepped out into a freelance role where I could focus more narrowly on questions of artificial intelligence, machine learning, data strategy, and systemic transformation . My recent projects focus on responsible technology development and the user experience of AI products.