Alaysia Brown: Hi everyone. I am Alaysia Brown, Community Lead, a diversified by design. And I'm super excited to be hosting tonight's Ask Me Anything conversation with Jasmine K Burton.

Alaysia Brown: Now I just mentioned divide our Diversify by Design, also known as DxD. And some of you may know a ton about the organization, while others of you may know nothing. And that is okay. That is why I'm here to tell you more. So Diversify by Design is a coalition of organizations and individuals that joined forces way back in 2021.

Alaysia Brown: I can't believe that was four years ago already. To create a more racially diverse and inclusive design industry, one of our core goals is to create opportunities for historically excluded young people to learn more about design and connect with successful designers like Jasmine. And in that spirit, divides and Ma series was developed. The series serves as a platform for designers who champion diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.

Alaysia Brown: Just to answer questions about their career, life experience, and the things that they dedicated their careers to creating. And with that, we are super excited and delighted in all the things to welcome tonight's AMA speaker, Jasmine K Burton, who is the executive director at Atlanta America's Promise Alliance and founder at wish for wash. I'm going to tell y'all a little bit more about Jasmine.

Alaysia Brown: I have had the great honor of digging on the internet and learning more about Jasmine's career and work over the last decade. In preparation for this. But since you all, I have not had the pleasure of doing that. I will tell you a little bit more. So Jasmine is an Atlanta area native and is also a social impact entrepreneur and design strategist with deep roots in the city's educational and ecosystem.

Alaysia Brown: Leading wish for a was a venture born from her Georgia Tech senior design project. She has built a career turning ideas into tangible solutions for global health and economic opportunity. Jasmine thrives at the intersection of design, strategy and community impact, co-founding the Anchor School, advocating for learner voice and education, innovation, and leading learning experiences at Idaho U. Georgia Tech and Emory.

Alaysia Brown: Ultimately, Jaz's work, Jaz works excuse me to dismantle barriers for those structurally excluded with the global, with the goal of co-designing more inclusive futures. Jasmine. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for joining us today. We are super excited to have you. And I. It's worth noting that I have said the word founded often in in talking through your bio.

Alaysia Brown: So you're a designer. You are many things social impact strategies, all the things. But you're a founder. Tell us more about the things that you have founded, the companies, the ideas, all the things.

Jasmine K Burton: Yes, yes. Well, thank you all so much for your time and energy and for holding space today. So excited to be here. As Alicia mentioned, I'm Jasmine or Jaz, also known as Bright Smiling Sage from the Nanticoke Nation. I'm tuning in today from Atlanta. And I also want to acknowledge the ancestral and territorial lands of the Muscogee and Cherokee tribes of Georgia.

Jasmine K Burton: On the lands upon which I live, work, and organize every day. And again, really grateful to be in community with all of you. So as as you rightfully, kind of mentioned Alaysia. Yes. Founding has been a big throughline in my journey and my story. And, you know, I, I really do attribute a lot of that, appetite and that energy and that way kind of through line through my career to my roots in design.

Jasmine K Burton: I'm an industrial designer by trade from Georgia Tech. And this concept of, you know, being able to create go from 0 to 100, have a blank piece of paper, starting to put ideas down, you know, how do you start generating ideas to to meet the needs or, you know, solve for a problem that you know to be true in the world?

Jasmine K Burton: How do you start testing some of those, reality stress testing with folks around you, with folks that are experiencing the problem? How do you, you know, create tangible, kind of manifestations of those drawings? And then how do you then, you know, put it into the world? And so, yeah, founding I feel like it's very similar.

Jasmine K Burton: This idea of something doesn't exist. And then it can exist by way of just imagining and working with the right people and, and sort of being married to the problem and solving the problem or working to solve the problem rather than, kind of the solution. And being married to, you know, I'm going to put the coolest thing out in the world.

Jasmine K Burton: It's going to show like I, you know, all the bells and whistles. I will acknowledge that's like a hard journey for a lot of us as makers. We want to, like, build cool things and put that out into the world. But, especially in the social impact space, it's really about understanding the problem and making sure that you're co-creating solutions that really work for the people who experience that problem.

Jasmine K Burton: And for me, that like really goes back to, my time at Georgia Tech and being exposed to this concept of social impact design, which started with, with, with a toilet, which is not a world that a lot of people talking about that.

Alaysia Brown: Was actually going to get into that. But I like to just highlight little gems that are being dropped throughout the conversation. And already, for all the students, I like to definitely speak to the students throughout these conversations. In addition to everyone here, I think it's already super encouraging you just speaking to the number of things that you founded and the number of jobs that you have done and will go on to do.

Alaysia Brown: I think a lot of the times when you're in undergrad, you're asked, what's your major? And then like, okay, design, you want to be a designer and you're like, yeah, but I get all the other cool ideas I had or just going to have to go sit at the wayside and just it's reassuring to hear you say, yeah, I am a designer and I'm an industrial designer by trade, but I've also built this and I use my skills to do this, this and that.

Alaysia Brown: So I think as a student, for all the students who are on, it's exciting for me to hear. And I graduated ten years ago, so hopefully is some inspiration for the students as well. We are going to talk about a lot of things tonight. Design for social impact design. It's a transferable skill. I can go on and on.

Alaysia Brown: But the thing that we're going to start with is the toilet of it all. That is something I have not said. But it's nice to have said it here tonight. We will be talking about the toilet of it all. Your journey, to toilet design and the power of human centered design. So let's let's get to that.

Alaysia Brown: What was the exact moment you realized, that there was something there with the design of toilets or whatever it was and how it could be a tool for social impact?

Jasmine K Burton: Yes, yes. Well, Yeah. Toilets. It's it's sort of think about your life and your day. Hopefully you spend time there. And this kind of, you know, the world that that we're in, we might not think about, the, the systems and the design products and services in which we interact with and live with and that enable us to live the lives that we do, because they're so ingrained into our day to day.

Jasmine K Burton: But for me, you know, my, I realized that there was a global inequity and, opportunity to to leverage design in the in the world of sanitation. When I was a first year freshman at Georgia Tech, I went to the Georgia Tech Women's Leadership Conference, which I think is really important to Naomi. This is Women's History Month.

Jasmine K Burton: There is, a lot to celebrate in terms of, the opportunity to design products and amplify the power of women and design. So I heard, an incredible Georgia Tech alumna, Susan Davis, who's an engineer by trade but has worked a lot kind of in the making space as well. And she was really saying she was like, you know, half the world doesn't have access to to sustainable and, safely managed sanitation.

Jasmine K Burton: And this reality, despite impacts women and girls and underserved communities, girls drop out of school when they're, when they reach puberty because their schools don't have access. They don't have toilets. Right. And so, you know, sitting in a conference focused on women in education in college, myself, you know, this reality of, like, so many people don't have access to this opportunity to this seat that I'm in right now because of something like a toilet that I would never even think about having.

Jasmine K Burton: You know, I don't have to think about where am I going to go to the bathroom? Or is it safe? You know, there's a door that locks, there's lights most of the time. Right? So, that really was the catalyst for me was that moment, and if you can imagine, you know, I'm 18, I call my parents.

Jasmine K Burton: I'm like, I'm going to design toilets. They were like, oh, wow. Like you just started college. And this is like, a very niche interest of yours. But luckily, you know, I had that spark really early on in my education, and I found champions, within my my school at Georgia Tech. That allowed me to make my studio curriculum and my design portfolio, sort of.

Jasmine K Burton: I was able to pursue peripheral projects. Like, how do I get into, you know, sustainable menstrual health product design. What about, like, a solar lamp project? You know, what would it look like to start building a portfolio around creating in an emerging market or in an underserved community? And that really teed me up nicely to my senior year, where I went to my professor and he was like, this is what we're doing for studio.

Jasmine K Burton: And I was like, you know, I have an idea, you know, can I can I work with other, you know, disciplines? I want to I want to work on a toilet project. This is sort of the thing that I have known that I'm passionate about since my, my first year at Georgia Tech. I posted on Facebook at the time and said, like, hey, I want to do this toilet project.

Jasmine K Burton: Anyone interested? And it was really awesome to see, like, first of all, folks were interested in I'm curious about what what that was entailed. And then I ended up working with, a mechanical engineer, biomedical engineer, civil engineer, all women, first collaborative, design studio project, just by way of sort of asking, asking my professors to make space for something that I was really passionate about.

Jasmine K Burton: And then, you know, from there we worked with, some more Georgia Tech alums. So plugging into our alumni network who worked in the sanitation space, we were able to get access to communities that didn't have access to sanitation. We were able to do interviews over Skype at the time. You know, and this idea of work talking to other nonprofits and, UN agencies and doing all of the empathy need, finding that, then informed.

Jasmine K Burton: Okay, here's the here's the problem. This is the reality that exists related to sanitation that none of us have personally experienced. We've talked to as many people as we can. We started sketching, prototyping. We came up with this concept and right now you're in you're in school. You have a, you know, timeline you have to hit. And so our final prototype was a foam foam core prototype that was a squat toilet seat.

Jasmine K Burton: We had a bad day that was modeled off of a Super Soaker. Which, if you can imagine, it was, like, very intense. I would not recommend, but that was like our end of semester project. We were very proud. Like, we went through this human centered design process. We focused on a need that, you know, is really important.

Jasmine K Burton: But really, what catalyzed everything for me, was from that point, we had the opportunity to compete in the Georgia Tech and Venture Prize competition, which is the largest undergraduate invention competition in the United States. We went on stage, we pitched our concept. We had to speak to the value of human centered design, the value of designing toilets in this moment, in this, you know, kind of world that we're in.

Jasmine K Burton: And then on stage, live streamed, we we won first place and people's choice, it was like $25,000 in a patent. And literally from being on stage with a foam prototype, we were, you know, four weeks later, we were in a refugee camp in northern Kenya piloting this toilet in community, with female headed household female translator.

Jasmine K Burton: And this idea, again, of being humbly ambitious, like, we were so excited. And how do we create space for getting actual feedback while we're in community, while we're actually talking to people and testing a real product? And it's no longer a foam prototype? So that was my my, my beginning of my career. And it's been a roller coaster ride, an adventure ever since.

Alaysia Brown: Tasmin I'm literally like, where do I even begin? I'm going to begin. Where? Ingrid in the chat began. Incredible fire. Love every bit of it. That is where I'm going to begin. Because while, And I'm curious, I always tell people more when we are on these calls, this isn't a call between myself and the speaker. This is all of our calls.

Alaysia Brown: Tara. Vicky. Michelle, Laura, Ingrid, everyone that is here. It's our conversation. So feel free to come off of mute. Utilize the chat. Be in conversation with us. You showed up for a reason, so definitely dive into the conversation. A couple of different things that I caught. I there was so much that I was trying to be like, take that.

Alaysia Brown: Remember that reference that because so much of it was so inspiring. One thing that you said you found champions. You found champions early on 18 freshman year. I'm going to ask about that. But let me, note a couple of other things that I noticed you trusted your gut. I think if someone if I call, if I call my mom and my dad and I told them I was designing toilets, they would say, well, if you just go down to Lowe's, you would see that you don't have to, right?

Yes.

Alaysia Brown: Oh, I'm not sure what your pushback looked like if you received any, which I'm sure you did. But it seems like you just trust that your gut from freshman year to senior year, you had that same just it seems like focus. So again, want to come back to that. You shared your ideas. You you weren't, you know, afraid that someone would steal this amazing idea.

Alaysia Brown: You shared it. You talk to professors, you talk to other students. I love that you did that. And I can go on and on. I'm going to go back to the champions of it all. How instrumental do you think it was to have champions in your corner early on, and how would you encourage students who are on the call currently to find champions, that they can have in their corner?

Jasmine K Burton: Yeah. No, I think that's a fantastic question. I mean, I think, you know, being studying design, particularly in university or post-secondary, you know, is an incredible privilege because you're in a place where you're making with people who are, you know, there to help you learn kind of what it is you're meant to make or, you know, the skills that you have.

Jasmine K Burton: And we all, you know, I personally believe that we all are designers know in our own ways, we all have the ability to design, you know, and create, you know, our futures and create the paths that we take, create, like, the systems in which we engage with. And so I do think that there is a bit of sort of, you know, finding people that help shape you and sort of bring bring that out of you.

Jasmine K Burton: But then I think, you know, to the point of champions, like, I really, I really focus on, like, articulating the why. Right? Like if you're, you know, and I, I think this translates professionally to like, getting clear at, you know what? Why are we doing. Why are we doing what we're doing. What is the what is the point of this project?

Jasmine K Burton: Or what is the learning outcome that we're looking to make from this project? For example, there was one project brief where I, you know, the assignment was to make, you know, something, it was lamps. And it's like, what what is what's the project learning outcome that we're meant to achieve from this project? And asking those questions of your professors and then saying, okay, can I achieve those learning outcomes?

Jasmine K Burton: Or can I show you that I'm, you know, accomplishing these learning outcomes just in a different way? Like, does it have to be a lamp, like, could it be X, Y, and Z? And so there's, an opportunity for you to learn how to articulate your interest, but also show that you're curious about learning. And I think that demonstrates, like a commitment to the educational process that I've found my my champions are very, you know, they're grateful, for because again, they're educators are in the space to, to pour into you.

Jasmine K Burton: So that's one thing I will name. And then I think another thing, you know, finding finding people that inspire and uplift you, I am still super close to my sophomore year studio professor. Her name is Raja Shah. She is, brilliant and powerful and known in the space widely. She was actually my only black woman professor, like, ever.

Jasmine K Burton: And so having her speak to me in a way that was like Jaz, you know, I wasn't the best in sketching. My portfolio wasn't the most beautiful. But she was like Jaz. You need to keep going. Like you need to keep pursuing the work you're doing. Design research. And the process that you're committed to makes you a designer as well.

Jasmine K Burton: So there's that finding. You're finding people that uplift you. And Raja has definitely been that for me. And so those are two things that I'll name in terms of champions.

Alaysia Brown: Yeah. Chris, I see you came off of mute going. Yeah.

Chris DeSantis: I just have to say, Jasmine, Raja is on Diversify by Design's advisory council, and we had our advisory council meeting, last week. And she was so thrilled that you were going to be on our AMA. And she did, sign up for today, and we're hoping that she shows up later. But she is still in your corner, still in your corner.

Jasmine K Burton: So I appreciate that. Thanks for sharing that.

Alaysia Brown: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And again, I could go back to those other points about trusting your gut and sharing your ideas, but I feel like we're going to hit them as we continue the conversation. So I will go ahead into the to the next question. And that is what's a misconception people have about designing for social impact that you've encountered.

Jasmine K Burton: Yeah, I mean, I think, I think the misconception is that, you know, especially if your early career or at any point in your career, honestly, a lot of people think or there's a notion that you have to be like a social impact person, like it's like, oh, you're a nonprofit person, or you're like, you or your career has been working in the impact space and therefore you can do social impact design work.

Jasmine K Burton: And I like to challenge that notion a lot because, again, I firmly believe, you know, we're we're training and design. We have, you know, degrees and experience and design as humans that exists in the world and know how to navigate. And I've had to learn how to navigate the world. We do have some intrinsic design abilities in addition to our learned experience.

Jasmine K Burton: And I mean, I think the ability to see and identify problems that are social impact related and create and drive momentum and collaborate in a way that is leveraging your design skills, both lived and learned. Like anyone can do that from any positionality, whether you're an intern or the CEO or whether you're in a nonprofit or a corporation.

Jasmine K Burton: And so, in my opinion, I think, again, it's sort of tapping into, you know, what are the skills that I learned in school, what are the skills that I know how to do as a human that has existed in this world? And what are the problems that excite me or that, you know, you know, fuel me? And how can I work with others to help drive meaningful solutions towards them?

Jasmine K Burton: And again, you don't have to have a certain title, and I don't think you have to have a certain like, work for a certain type of organization for that to be true. And so that's yeah, that's something that I firmly believe in and I like continue to share to folks in my world.

Yeah.

Alaysia Brown: Awesome. Well, I'm going to ask one more work. Oh, Ingrid. Yes. Also, Ingrid, glad to see you. It's always a party when you are here. So thank you for coming.

Guest: I'm not sure if you can hear me. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. Cool. I heard you mention. Thank you for being here. This is so great. Number one. But I heard you mentioned that, you went to Georgia Tech and you studied there. I recently, traveled to Houston and Dallas and, met with some students in at, Prairie View A&M, their school of architecture there.

Guest: And I'm wondering if, something about our communities, whether it is where they're coming from socioeconomically. In terms of what they see, because I do not I understand that I am not, the norm, of the African American experience and, What role does socioeconomic where their lived experience and, and also what the conditions are, where they're studying.

Guest: So they're not necessarily encouraged to do certain things because there's a lack of the number of professors or professors, have had give a damn squeeze out of them. Other things have impacted greatly where professors are after they can't quit after ten years, 15 years are still going because if they drop out, there's nobody there to to even care this much about them.

Guest: So the two things that I kind of saw and I wonder where they're at play. And the last thing, the third thing is do you volunteer with design students? Yes.

Jasmine K Burton: Thank you so much. Okay. So, quick response to the last question. Yes. Yes. So I, I try to share space with as many, you know, design students, learners in general, just in terms of this idea of, I think being able to co-create, build design and leverage design tools to craft your pathway, your future. You know, I don't think design has to be making physically all the time.

Jasmine K Burton: It just sort of opening your mind to possibilities, and asking, knowing how to ask questions and being empowered to ask questions. And so yes, I think like that is 100% a piece of piece of my world. And so I appreciate that question. So and I think your first question was around kind of the interplay of socioeconomic status of students and then, educators kind of not having the bandwidth.

Jasmine K Burton: Does that feel right? Yeah. I mean, I think that that is a I think that's a really important call out. And, I mean, I will also acknowledge, like, I'm not, you know, I my parents, my people, my community shattered ceilings for me to like be here today. And so I his name that I know that deeply you know having I I'm sure as folks you know are studying design.

Jasmine K Burton: It's inexpensive. It can be a very expensive, you know, educational program. And, you know, luckily by way of my communities, I was able to access scholarships. And so scholarship support is something that I, particularly at Georgia Tech, has been sort of a big throughline for me. How do we enable particularly underserved or underrepresented young people to have access to making careers?

Jasmine K Burton: And, yes, having access to funding to make that possible because, you know, buying all the materials and stuff, it's not cheap. So, yes, I think that that's an important call out. And, I think one other thing to to note is like and enabling and supporting and hopefully folks in the room feel, feel a sense of this of like you belong in the space of making.

Jasmine K Burton: You belong in the space of designing, even if you don't see others that look like you there. So I was like one of two, you know, black people in my design program. And it's like how do how do we continue to show up so that there's more to like, how do we create this pipeline? How do we create access?

Jasmine K Burton: How do we enable folks to see themselves as designers, as makers? And one thing to that, I'll, I'll kind of end with, for this point is, so I participated in the where the black designers, convening in 2020 by way of rojak, who again has opened up all these doors for me. And I remember someone saying, you know, you know, particularly black people are naturally designers because we have had to design ways to navigate a world that wasn't built for us.

Jasmine K Burton: And I just think that that, again, how do we unlock that way of thinking for like, black communities, communities of color, marginalized communities in general? How do we get folks in into the positions of power where they are making for their own communities? So it's, you know, for us, by us as well, you know, rather than sort of a more top down approach, particularly around social impact challenges.

Jasmine K Burton: So I don't know if that answered your question, but I, I kind of touched on a lot of the pieces that, that you named. And so I appreciate you lifting up all of that.

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely, absolutely. Awesome. Well, one question that I do want to ask about, and we touched on it a little bit, the challenges that come with creating things and founding things and designing things, I'm sure there were many challenges that you faced throughout the process, but what's one challenge you faced when trying to get others to see the importance of sanitation and design?

Alaysia Brown: And, how did you overcome it?

Jasmine K Burton: Yeah, I mean, I think this this learning could be applicable across the board, you know, to to your point, like when I was like, I want to design toilets and people are like, you know, toilets exist, like toilets, like, why would you want to design a toilet? You know, and then there's this counter argument where it's like, okay, why would you design another car?

Jasmine K Burton: Like, cars exist, right? And so it's just we as a society put value on certain types of things. I continue to want more and different and innovation and sustainable and, you know, energy efficient. But, you know, then things like toilets haven't been redesigned at a commercial scale for over 200 years. You know, so there's this, there's this question of where do we place value?

Jasmine K Burton: And I think that idea of how, yeah, how do you sort of invite, how do you invite people into that way of thinking? And I name it that way, because particularly if you're in a place where I found myself very early in my career where you're fundraising, you're in rooms with people that are significantly more powerful or have more influence and than you do, you know, you might not come in sort of saying, yeah, like, this is a it's a it's a really privileged view to say toilets exist when the world doesn't have, you know, clean water or doesn't have the same supply chains that we do.

Jasmine K Burton: And, so again, you don't necessarily want to use that language or that approach in all cases. And so I do think for me, it was this learning of how do you ask the right questions to encourage people to start opening their minds to, oh, you know, I have choices in the car that I can buy. I have choices in the toothbrushes I can buy.

Jasmine K Burton: Why couldn't we have like a menu of more diverse options for toilets based off of people's lived experience, where they're based, where they have access to, you know, their physical ability? And so again, I think those are some of the, the challenges. But I think, again, it could be applied across the board. And I think it goes back to asking some of our powerful design questions like, what would have to be true?

Jasmine K Burton: How might we like, how do we start encouraging people to think beyond sort of what they see today to what could be?

Alaysia Brown: Yeah. And I mean, hearing you speak, it also seems like a lot of why not? You know, I think so many people are obsessed with like, well, why do we need it? It's like, why do we not need it? Like, you know, who's to say that we don't? And, Ingrid, I see your questions in the chat. I will get to them before I do that.

Alaysia Brown: I did want to ask so far in the conversation. Does anybody else have any additional questions? You've already again, gave us so much goodness in this conversation. But I just wanted to pause, to create space to see if anyone else had any questions so far.

Alaysia Brown: Alrighty. Not yet. If you've been here before, you know I don't mind an awkward silence. Pause. So I will return to that question and ask if you all have any questions. And I expect to see some hands up. But until then, we just mentioned our you just mentioned where all the black designers and amazing organization and can you actually say that quote again, because when you said it I was like, yes, yes, yes, but would love to hear it again.

Jasmine K Burton: Yes, yes. So the quote was, black people are naturally designers because we have had to design ways to navigate a world that wasn't built for us.

Alaysia Brown: I love that. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And it's a perfect segue into the question that I had for you. Around identity. And just in general, how has your experience as a native and black woman shape the way you see design or the way that you interact with design or your journey thus far?

Jasmine K Burton: Yes. Yeah. No, I appreciate that question. And I mean, I think, you know, there's so much to be said around, the nature of making, particularly in the context in which we exist. There there are, you know, people are seeking jobs. You're also tend to be creating things that exist in a capitalist system, which means that they're selling, which means that there's, you know, more linear processes.

Jasmine K Burton: And these are just, you know, kind of the nature of the world in which we we operate. And I name that because I think as much as that's the, the norm kind of rooting back to, to, like identity and culture, for me at least, it's helped reinforce kind of the sense of even if we are existing in these linear kind of systems, there is a call for being circular.

Jasmine K Burton: And in terms of how do we encourage our teams and the folks that we work with to have an iterative mindset, like even that concept of asking for feedback is sometimes really not even top of mind for folks. And there's a lot of business value, community value, and just asking for feedback and actually integrating feedback into whatever product or service system that you're creating, you know, it's like actually putting it into practice.

Jasmine K Burton: There's a lot of value in that. The idea of, you know, the circular economy, like, how do we go, you know, waste to renewal, you know, reuse, like how do we create more circular rather than linear supply chains? And materiality. Like I think that is, again, very much rooted in indigenous and, black culture. And so this idea of how do we like, leverage some of these, like, lived and learned knowledges that we know historically and like, you know, through through identity and how do we bring that into our making in a way that, you know, isn't like a trend, right?

Jasmine K Burton: Like I feel like some things can come off as trendy, but this idea of if something is going to be truly circular, you know, it's it's going to take a lot of work and cost up front. And I think I find myself saying things like that, like, if we are going to actually work in community and ask for feedback upfront, it is going to be a high upfront cost, but then the long term benefit will be great because it's like, you know, sustainably created in a way that actually makes sense in context.

Jasmine K Burton: Same with, you know, circularity. Like if you're going to change supply chains to make products more sustainable, it's going to be it's going to require a lot of cost upfront. And getting that buy in is challenging. And so anyways, I, I just name that coming from these identities for me at least, has, helped me try to find language case studies, kind of inspiration.

Jasmine K Burton: That has helped at least folks that I move with and work kind of see the possibilities of and and the like, value of investing upfront, in a way that they might not have seen before. And yeah, I think that that's something that has been really powerful in my journey.

Alaysia Brown: Yeah. And this idea of investing upfront in 2025, I, I just wonder what that is even like. I feel like it was like pulling teeth. Is that the thing pulling teeth? To get people to invest five, ten years ago. And so have you seen I'm sure you have. What is that difference? And I don't want to speak for you, so I'm going to ask, have you seen a difference in, this idea of investing upfront, considering everything that's going on?

Alaysia Brown: And, I guess just what is like your hope for it moving forward? Are you, like, down to continue to push for that, or are you kind of just like, well, maybe we'll have to kind of put that to the side? I hate to say it that way. And yeah. What does that look like? Do you think, as we just head into a very different new world?

Jasmine K Burton: Yeah. No, I mean, I think it's a great question. Like I do think, like, you know, if we're thinking about social impact and social impact can look like a lot of things. And for some folks that's like very, you know, climate sustainability related, which there's still a lot of momentum sort of in and from the business world to create things that are sustainable.

Jasmine K Burton: Like EV is like a huge market. And in terms of making and I have a very strong product line. So I know that's a bit of a bias in how I present, but I think like that is, there's a lot of momentum right now in terms of just how how the systems are set up even within this kind of environment that we're operating in.

Jasmine K Burton: I think in terms of just like social impact for me, which is mostly rooted in and community and people, you know, there's sort of an interesting moment that I feel like we're entering or we're in, where there's like this call for designing or designing workplace cultures or school based cultures. And this I, you know, kind of acknowledging to that we're experiencing and living through a really disruptive technological time.

Jasmine K Burton: And a lot of, you know, workflows and things are automated and we're only going to see more displacement from that from AI. And so this idea of human connection, culture, intuition, how do we foster, how do we foster imagination on a team, for example. And like designers are primed to help lead some of that work no matter what kind of organization that is.

Jasmine K Burton: And that's like you're talking about transferable skills. Like that's sort of a skill that like as we see more and more agents come out and things like in the AI world, like if you can say I'm able to leverage, not only am I able to make things pretty or to prototype things or sort of whatever people view you as, you can also say, I can help sort of think about how to leverage imagination as a competitive advantage, or as something that would be a value offering to this firm or to this nonprofit.

Jasmine K Burton: And so I think, like things like that, as much as they're not, maybe what social impact look like a few years ago. Like, I think this idea of, again, humanity, community, culture, the power of what we hold as people and how do we bring that back into work and school and life in a way that is meaningful?

Jasmine K Burton: I think that's going to be a really cool opportunity for for makers to dive into.

Alaysia Brown: I love that, I love that, and so far, any comments? Just in general, I'm wondering from the audience about what you've been hearing so far. Has anything anyone quote stood out to you? Is there something that you now feel inspired to do after hearing Jasmine so far? Was you still have some minutes left in the conversation, so there's more inspiration to be had, but just want to do a pulse check with the audience, before moving forward.

Alaysia Brown: Going once. Going twice. All righty. Well, let's see. Vicki dropped something into the chat. And so I'm going to go ahead and ask this question. And also just mentioned it's great to hear about design in a way that's less traditional than what she's used to. So love that point. Vicki asked. A couple of minutes ago, how does it look to be humbly ambitious and how do we cultivate that mindset?

Alaysia Brown: I'm interested to hear your thoughts on how ambitious those two words in particular. Vicki, if you have any more context that you want to add to this question, feel free to As Jasmine is answering, feel free to come off of mute at any point if you would like to whatever's most comfortable for you. I'll go ahead and ask the question one more time.

Alaysia Brown: How does it look to be humbly ambitious, and how do we cultivate that mindset?

Jasmine K Burton: Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Vicki, for the question. I mean, I think for me, being humbly ambitious means, you know, there are big problems that exist, that we know there are big problems that will exist, that we don't know. And as people who are hopefully rooted in solving problems by way of making, this idea of being ambitious enough to say, I want to, you know, I'm going to go for this problem.

Jasmine K Burton: Like, you know, for me, like this global sanitation, you know, it's it's spoke to me. It's continues to speak to me. It's something that fills my cup. And it has, you know, opened up a lot of doors for me in terms of how I see the world and what opportunities that I, I've been able to pursue, but then also the ability to drive impact.

Jasmine K Burton: So I think there's something about being ambitious in terms of the types of problems that excite you, rather than sort of saying, oh, I want to go for these very like, not easy, but like, I want to go for something. I know I can achieve, go for something like the world of complexity world, a world where there might not be a right answer or the right product, or the right, you know, graphic or the right program or whatever it is that you're making.

Jasmine K Burton: And so that's what I named about an ambitious because, again, there's only going to be more complexity, I imagine, in the world to come. But the part about being humble, I think, you know, you don't want to be the type of, especially in the impact space where you're like, oh, I'm going to like save the world.

Like, oh.

Jasmine K Burton: I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, my toilet is really going to save lives, you know, like that. That is not it. Like, and again, sort of going back into how do you have an appetite for big problems, but being, kind of humble enough to know you only know what you know, you don't know what you don't know, and you can only discover what you don't know by way of asking questions and living and working in community with other people.

Jasmine K Burton: And so that's like the humble part. And in particular, if you are excited by a problem that you personally don't experience. So for me, like, you know, I never experienced not having a toilet, being humble enough to say at some point, like, sometimes I can't be the messenger. I shouldn't be the messenger for this. This toilet pilot.

Jasmine K Burton: Right? Like, sometimes we need to make partnerships with folks that are in these communities, and they need to communicate what they know to be true so that we're not getting biased information about the things we've created. Right. Because my presence sometimes creates bias. And that's that's not an easy pill to swallow when you're like, this is so cool, I want to see my thing being used.

Jasmine K Burton: So that that's what I mean by being humble. And I think cultivating that mindset is a great question. That's a great question. Yeah. I, I don't know if I have a like a strong answer to that because I do think it's a practice. I think it's a practice for us in our own lives. And like applying, you know, applying.

Jasmine K Burton: I think my personal realization is, you know, I love human centered design as a thing, you know, that I do. But applying it to me, to myself, like Jasmine, like you are continuously iterating, like you need to be empathetic with yourself because maybe you asked a question, or you showed up at a space that wasn't the best. How do you learn?

Jasmine K Burton: How do you iterate yourself on your own practice in terms of how humility shows up in your work, or how ambitious shows up in your work? Or maybe you didn't ask for enough in your salary because you know, you you know you're you were worth it, right? So for me, it's like this idea of how do you continue to reflect on your own self by using design thinking principles, so that you can cultivate the sense of being humbly ambitious for you.

Jasmine K Burton: How to cultivate it beyond you is is. Honestly, Vicky, I'm going to sit with that one.

If I something.

Jasmine K Burton: Else comes to me. But that's a great question.

Alaysia Brown: Thank you so much, Vicky, for that question. Again, we do these not these, not do, but we have these conversations. For everyone, but for especially the students, the students who are looking to see themselves in the speaker, the student who is like, I'm doing this as a major. What do I do next? How am I moving forward?

Alaysia Brown: I don't know about y'all, but when I was in undergrad, I had a lot more questions than answers. And so that's why we host this conversation. So I want to get into the career of it all. One question is that, looking back, what's one career decision you're most proud of and what values guided that choice?

Jasmine K Burton: Yeah. That's a great question. I mean, I think, you know, wish for was sort of was the thing, you know, catapulted out of the toilet, you know, from school. And so for me, it's really like, I feel like I've grown up alongside the organization and the nature of how you're showing up. And so that has been sort of a very strong through line in my career.

Jasmine K Burton: But I think, I think a career decision that maybe was me starting to, to explore sort of beyond the bounds of traditional product design. I, I, I guess I in my bio, you mentioned I helped co-found a school and in Atlanta, and so this was a couple of years ago, I was approached by the, my co-founder, one of our co-founders, Josh, who's now the head of the school.

Jasmine K Burton: And he's brilliant. He's leading all the things. And, I sit on our board, I was approached by him because he was like, okay, I know that you've been leveraging human centered design and products. And I am looking to, you know, explore the opportunity for, what it would look like to create a tuition free, public charter school in Atlanta in a community that is super underserved and like the traditional public schools have been failing, especially after Covid.

Jasmine K Burton: There's been a lot of, you know, instability. And he was like, could you work with me and, you know, be a part of a co-design team to, like, speak to community members, see what the opportunity spaces for a school is or demand? Is there interest? What should the school look like? And so again, it's like applying all these human centered design skills of like, how do you actually identify if there's a problem?

Jasmine K Burton: And then creating and co-designing the school in community with people, which we get all the time, people are like, oh, that's so innovative, which is honestly crazy, y'all. People should this shouldn't be innovative. Like, it should be the norm to sort of talk to people and ask before you create things. But that I mean, all that to say, it went from being a product to like a school system.

Jasmine K Burton: So this idea of what does it look like, you know, to enroll students, what does it look like? What does a space look like? What is the space look like relative to a budget that, you know, we're a startup. We're in year two of what what does it look like to create a space for young people that's safe and productive, but also generative and inspiring?

Jasmine K Burton: What does it look like to have a project based learning curriculum where you are creating like maker spaces for, you know, folks that had never, you know, imagined themselves to be makers. And so again, I'm, I'm, I'm proud and honored to be a part of the team because it is, living into the value of what does it mean to co-create, what does it mean to iterate?

Jasmine K Burton: And so I hold space with a lot of our, educators, our family members, even even our students. We have a sixth and seventh grade students that have a lot of great feedback. And how do we incorporate that qualitative data into the future of the school? And so again, this idea of it doesn't have to be a thing that you're making for you to leverage the skills that you're learning and design school.

Jasmine K Burton: And I'll also name to some other very cool and important transferable skills, getting visual. You know, a lot of people that aren't makers or aren't designers don't don't feel confident getting getting visual with their ideas. And so there's something really powerful about being like, oh, is this what you mean? And you just could be a quick sketch. It can be a flowchart.

Jasmine K Burton: It can be connecting the dots. It doesn't have to be some beautiful high end sketch, but just putting something in a visual way in front of other people sometimes has the power to, like, bring people together or Fuze Tension or, you know, get people aligned. So I think that's something that that's really cool. And then also, you know, the idea of creating and making, getting feedback and iterating is always something that I think, non makers, in my experience, don't have that mindset.

Jasmine K Burton: And so that's a value add as well. Yeah. That that's a little bit about a nontraditional career path that I found myself in kind of in education and sort of designing systems systems in the education space, which continues to be a challenge, but like a beautiful challenge in a lot of ways.

Alaysia Brown: Yeah. And even the writing it down of it all goes back to this initial idea and thought that we kind of explored a little bit at the beginning of the conversation, just getting the idea out there, talking about it, it turning it into a reality. Not kind of like waiting around for it to become something, but like playing an active role.

Alaysia Brown: And this idea coming to reality. So I love that. Ingrid had a question. How do you scale good design. And I love that question because it's such a huge question. You could answer it in a thousand different ways. But, the idea of like, good design and scale, it's just kind of like, like, how do we give me more of this goodness of all of the things that make great design?

Alaysia Brown: Great. So I love that question. So I'll pose it to you. And also I like to encourage if there are design professionals in the room, I know we have students but also design professionals that are on. Would love to hear your $0.02 as well. To this question. So I'll ask again, how do you scale? Good design.

Jasmine K Burton: Yeah. I think, it's a great question and I think it's sort of my initial instinct to it kind of goes back to something we had talked about earlier, this idea of, well, like what is good design? In my view, good design is something that is like meeting a true need that people that truly experience it, like, understand the use case, they understand the why they're part of the decision making in some way.

Jasmine K Burton: And again, I have a strong bias since I work in the social impact space. So I know that not all things are made that way, but for me, that is part of what it means to be good and in terms of design. And so I name that because I think in terms of scale, particularly kind of in the construct of, you know, business, sometimes there's a big push to scale quick, quickly, which means like your cycles of getting feedback, your cycles of getting any feedback sometimes are cut.

Jasmine K Burton: And in which case you're just scaling design, you're not scaling good design. So I think the question is important, like, well written. And I think it, you know, the how is is a great question. I think it depends on what it is. I think it depends on the vehicles. But I think the time horizon changes because for it to be good, it takes, again, there's an upfront investment.

Jasmine K Burton: An investment can look like money. It can look like time. Right. Just more time. Sometimes you see like people who have all these aspirations to do all this stuff in community and they have like a month. So like one month we're going to do all this really deep community work and you're like.

I was.

Jasmine K Burton: Thinking follow up question.

Yeah.

Jasmine K Burton: Maybe, you know, in terms of budget, that's another question. But also the expectations of the upfront time costs, I think is important. But I know that's not an answer. But I think like just acknowledging that like the how sometimes is longer and sometimes that's part of the tension, at least in the work that I do.

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely. I think that's a great answer. And I will come back to our audience again. So far we've had a lot of great points made. I wonder in the audience if there's anyone with questions or comments about the conversation we've been having so far.

Alaysia Brown: They got a quiet bunch tonight. Alrighty. No worries. Well, I will ask that question one more time. So. Hi, Tara.

Guest: Hi. Sorry. I was like, computer is too slow to catch it, you know?

Alaysia Brown: It's okay. I sorry, I'm like. I do not mind an awkward pause. I will sit here for 20s like, does anyone have anything? No. I'm joking. But glad to have you off of me. Glad to have you here. Would love to hear your question.

Guest: My question is a follow up on the last one about scale and good design. So my question is, imagine it working a lot with a lot of non designers. How do you like, advocate for the scaling of the good part of design?

Jasmine K Burton: Yeah, it's a great question. Again I this might feel like super meta, but I feel like something that I've had to lean into in recent years is, knowing kind of leveraging human centered design or design thinking as a tool to understand kind of or empathizing with leaders or coworkers that might not fully understand what we're talking about.

Jasmine K Burton: What do I mean by that? What we're talking about and sort of, you know, good design, design in general, sometimes people will just glaze over if they or some people don't even design is like a mystery to them. Like they have no idea, like what it even is. And so I say that because depending on who they are, even using the word design might not be how you get them to buy in.

Jasmine K Burton: Right. And so understanding, okay, if I'm talking to the CFO, like what's the business case? What's like the return on investment, right. Like what are different ways that I could speak in a language that would land with this person in a way that would make it so we could get to the good design right. So I think it is sort of understanding who your audience is and being able to tailor your message to them.

Jasmine K Burton: You're still doing the work. But just in a way that's more meaningful to them. Right? If you're talking to the R&D team. Right. Like, you know, you can you can speak it in a way that's different than, you know, marketing team. They have different timelines, horizons, expectations. So how do you pitch kind of this idea of, of, advocating for good design in a way that resonates with like the, the audience that you're, that you're not convincing, but sort of bringing along in the journey.

Jasmine K Burton: And there's this concept of sort of what's in it for me, which unfortunately, unfortunately, that is like kind of especially in business. And this could be true in consulting and nonprofit and startup and corporations. There's this concept of like, what's in it for me and why? Why should I care? And so I think, again, like leveraging these design tools I've had, how do you actually communicate what's in it for them in a way that helps them kind of join your good design team, even if they don't fully use that language?

Jasmine K Burton: If that makes sense.

Guest: Thank you.

Jasmine K Burton: Thank you for the question.

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely. And I want to say, while we have our students on, I cannot let another minute go by without acknowledging our scholarship program. We mentioned scholarships a little bit earlier and the role that they've played in your design career. And seeing Tara, I'm like, we've got get the word out about this scholarship to student. So I'm going to pass the buck to Matthew for a couple of seconds, and he's going to let us know more about, opportunities with our scholarship.

Matthew Richards: Thanks, Elysia. And I'll be quick. But, you know, as Jasmine mentioned, we know that, like, scholarships and like the financial barrier to a, you know, quality education, in design is, like, insurmountable for a lot of people. So we're really, really, grateful to be able to join, Aiga and World Studio, headed by Mark Randall, who has been at this for 30 years, to provide scholarships for students who are, pursuing a career in design, specifically underserved and underrepresented students.

Matthew Richards: So, Alicia just dropped a link in the chat where you can go and apply. The applications are open right now. So if you're a student, definitely apply here. If you know students, definitely, you know, send it to them. And note there's no application fee. So yeah, dive right in. The water is fine. And who knows what. We'll spring forth.

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely. Thank you. Matthew. And we are going to get a move forward with our last question. I'm excited to access question because I love, a hopeful moment, especially in the midst of everything that is going on in this world right now. And I feel like nothing gives hope, like design. And so I'm going to go ahead and ask, what gives you hope about the power of design today?

Jasmine K Burton: Yes, yes, I think, yes. There's so much, so much to be said about, about hope. And I think a number of things, there's a quote I forget who to attribute it to, but, the quote is design is inherently optimistic and that is its power. Right? So the questions that we're able to ask the, the, you know, the assets we're able to create, the way that we're able to synthesize information, the way we're able to visualize things and communicate in ways that not others, not everyone else can do, so readily and easily.

Jasmine K Burton: Is is joyful in a lot of ways. It's fun in a lot of ways. There's a lot of play involved. I find even, you know, in certain spaces where there's not a lot of designers like using color, just people like, oh.

Oh, that's so delightful.

Jasmine K Burton: Right? So this idea of how do you bring hope, joy, delight into, you know, where into your practice, into you, into your body, hopefully. And people are finding ways to have an experience. Joy. In this in this time in sort of in life at large. And then in your work, in your practice, at large. I think that, yeah.

Jasmine K Burton: The, the nature of the again, I, I've mentioned questions a lot just because I do think that there's a lot of, of powerful questions that you learn as a designer. So, like, what would have to be true? Why not like these? Brainstorm generative questions rather than, kind of being focused on what exists today. Like we have the ability to sort of open the aperture to think about what could be tomorrow.

Jasmine K Burton: And I think to sort of going back to something that you named at the beginning age, just intuition and like, your gut, you know, after you, you know, you're in school, you're learning or you're practicing as a designer and you develop a sense of intuition that is a value add to you as a human and to you in the workplace.

Jasmine K Burton: It's not always something that's named, but I want to expressly say that there is an intuition to being someone who makes things and an ability to to see things that other people can't. And I think that there's a lot of hope and joy and, like, power in that, professionally, in a world where there's a lot of uncertainty.

Jasmine K Burton: Right? Like designers have this cool competitive advantage to be able to lean on an intuition that, you know, I and agents like, can't replicate, right? Like, that's a really cool skill to be able to, to put into the market, but then also to just exist as a, as a person in the world, to be able to lean on what you know to be true through your lived and learned experiences.

Jasmine K Burton: So I think there's a lot of joy in that. And I also like to sort of name to, as like a closing thought. I think, you know, portfolios are important. You know, being able to communicate about your work is important. But I think what's also ultimately kind of a through line that, you know, maybe you communicate through your portfolio and your work at large is like knowing knowing what your values are, like you as an individual, what are your values that need to show up in your work and and what you practice?

Jasmine K Burton: What are you what's your value proposition? Right. Like, what are the skills that you have honed in school? And the skills that you can sort of speak to with confidence. And then when do you find yourself in internships or working? Sort of what value have you created? What things have you made? What things have you can you attribute to?

Jasmine K Burton: And I name that because again, it's a good practice for for that I've leaned into as I develop and iterate because portfolio is a forever, forever journey. You're always of data and kind of continuously improving your portfolio, but having sort of a structure to it in a way that feels true to you, you know, and the things that you believe to be true with the skills that you've cultivated as a designer, and then the things that you've put out into the world and being able to capture that in a way for yourself so you can speak to it, but then also to showcase to others.

Jasmine K Burton: I think it's really, really, an awesome practice as well.

Alaysia Brown: Yes. Jasmin, this has been so, so, so so so good. I've seeing, she's just like been writing her notes and I'm like, I can't wait to see Chris's notes because I know they're going to be so good. Just at so many great points up. Been me tonight. Just, this idea of reiterating and this idea of trusting your gut and showing up and sharing, you know, what it is that you want to design.

Alaysia Brown: And this idea that I can do this, but I can also do that, you know, I can I can support and founding a school, and I can also design toilets that make a difference across the ocean. So for everyone. But I always see, especially the students, I really hope that you've taken something regardless of what it is from this conversation.

Alaysia Brown: And even just seeing Jasmine do her work is enough for me. So definitely super excited to have you on, especially during Women's History Month. Of all the months. And we actually have some amazing women that are also going to be coming up in our Ask Me Anything series. On April 24th, we are going to be joined by Liz, who is the president of Three Spot.

Alaysia Brown: And a lot of her work involves bridging people and perspectives and organization. So I'll drop that link and feel free to register. Liz is amazing. Jasmine, you have been so great to be in conversation with. Is there any way that we can follow you? How can we support you? Let us know.

Jasmine K Burton: Yes. No. Really appreciate this time and space. It's been great. Thank you all for the questions and the engagement. This has been awesome. I'm going to drop my LinkedIn. I'm super active on LinkedIn. So if folks are just looking to connect or, you know, you know, have conversations beyond this, happy to connect there. My portfolio is also linked there on my LinkedIn.

Jasmine K Burton: And so happy to to talk through that again. It's a forever journey. So I you know, it is what it is today and it will be what it will be tomorrow. But happy to to share tips and, you know, just convening with folks after this as well. So thanks so much for the time and space.

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely. And I just want to ask one more time before we leave any other questions, comments, anything from the audience. Let me know. Going once. Going to Chris.

Yeah, I mean, I can't thank you enough for this really delicious and meaty conversation that you've shared with us today. I, I know that you've just recently started a new position about 30 days ago, and you're drinking from the proverbial fire hose. Is Alaysia mentioned any anything that you could share with the folks that are on today about job searching in this environment?

Yes, because it's a little bit crazy out there. Yeah. Any tips?

Jasmine K Burton: Yes. I mean, I think, yeah, just going back to some of our earlier points, like there's so many like you are studying if you're studying and design if you're looking to transition, and then the world of design. I would just encourage folks to think about that, think about the root skills that you have. Right. This idea of, you know, you're able to convene people, you're able to story, tell, you're able to visualize, you're able to, you know, leverage making or to prototype, like what are the what are the skills beyond like the software's beyond like the actual design degree name.

Jasmine K Burton: Right. And so like for me, I, I spread out into graphic design. I've done experience design. You know, you're creating convening spaces, which that's like a really big market right now in terms of how do you create, you know, create space for people to to come together, whether it's physical or in person or virtual. And being able to, to craft a learning experience or moments for, for people to come together is, is, I mean, big demand right now.

Jasmine K Burton: And then, yeah, I mean, I think leveraging things like imagination, intuition, these, these skills and again, like mindsets that you hold in particular as a designer, as a maker, in a world that, again, is increasingly more automated, that that again, I think gives you a competitive edge that is transferable. And so I name all that because maybe roles don't say the word design in them, or maybe they don't have the your design title or degree program on it.

Jasmine K Burton: But you there are opportunities for you to leverage all of the things that you're learning and the skills that you're developing in the portfolio that you're building in different in new ways that are still super meeting and impactful. So I'm happy to like, dive into more folks are interested, but I think like hopefully this is helpful in terms of just opening your your aperture of it.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Alaysia Brown: Awesome. Well, thank you again everyone for attending. Definitely check out the links in our bio. Or not in our bio in the chat I'm like speaking in social media speak. So that got the links in the chat regarding the scholarship. If you're a student, especially if you're not a student and you know students who are in the design space share that scholarship opportunity with them.

Alaysia Brown: We actually have an interview on our blog right now, about someone who received the scholarship ten years ago. And they came back to us to talk about the work that they've done, illustrating books and working with Cartoon Network. So, check that out, but definitely send this, this opportunity for scholarships to students. And if you are a student, apply.

Alaysia Brown: We have an AMA coming up on the 24th. Jasmine, thank you so much. We appreciate you. And yeah, that is it. So thank you for attending tonight. Everyone in the audience. We appreciate you so much for supporting.

Jasmine K Burton: Thanks so much everyone. Really appreciate it.

Alaysia Brown: Awesome. And with that have a great evening everyone.

Thank you Jasmine, and thank you everyone for joining.