Doreen Toutikian is a human-centered designer, cultural producer, researcher, lecturer, curator and an entrepreneur working in the field for more than 15 years. She is a co-founder of four companies and organizations including omgyno.com, Beirut Design Week, MENA Design Research Center, and LOOP/Listen Observe Organize Prototype/.
She is also an educator on design research methods in various universities and programs, a member of the pedagogical committee of the Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts, a mentor and juror for student examinations and start-up competitions, a consultant to non-profit organizations and UN agencies on design for social impact, and a regular public speaker at various conferences around the world.
Her book, ‘Design Education in the Middle East’, which was awarded the Cologne Design Prize in 2010, marked the beginning of her career in Beirut where she set out to build a collective design community and enhance the understanding of design and research in the region. She believes that collaboration is the key to good design. This belief has inspired her to initiate various projects in order to encourage multidisciplinary teamwork for social innovation. Such projects include ‘Public Design Intervention: Beirut’ (2010), ‘Desmeem: Rethinking Design though Cross-Cultural Collaboration (2012)’, ‘Disrupt!/Design!’ (2015/16) and ‘Beirut Design Week’ (annual event since 2012). In 2013, Beirut Design Week was awarded the Lebanese Social Economic Award.
Doreen is an advisor to various global networks including the ‘International Gender Design Network’, the ‘Board of International Research in Design/BIRD’, a fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar, and a member of the Young Cultural Innovators of the British Council. She is also an avid traveller, speaks six languages English, Arabic, French, German, Armenian and Greek, and lives in between Beirut and Athens.
