Gathering Design Lab
For change makers that want strategies for creating gatherings that spark lasting impact
How do we design gatherings that truly matter?
In this interactive lab, we’ll release and explore a brand-new set of 9 Gathering Design Strategies developed through our work with Echoing Green — an inspiring global NGO supporting changemakers around the world.
In a world of burnout, complexity, and disconnection, the way we bring people together can determine if change takes root or fades. Gatherings can be far more than name tags, watery coffee, and post-its. They can become engines of learning, belonging, and change.
Why join?
👉 Learn 9 field-tested strategies you can apply right away
👉 Experience creative approaches convening design
👉 Connect with peers who design for change and learning
👉 Walk away with fresh tools to create gatherings that last
The Evidence
The benefits of designing great gatherings can be as infinite as the types of gatherings, but we know that these huge needs can directly be addressed by the strategies we will share:
Complex Change: In adaptive systems, the quality of interactions drives emergence.
Learning: Neuroscience shows trust and psychological safety unlock the brain’s capacity for growth.
Well-being: The 85-year Harvard Study shows relationships are the strongest predictor of health and longevity.
Designing better gatherings means designing for change, learning, and well-being.
The 9 Gathering Design Strategies
🎨 Power of Creation | 🌱 Thriving Inside Out | 🧭 Gathering Ownership | 🌌 Emergence | 🚪 Generous Exclusion | 🗺️ Build Your Own Adventure | 🧘 Wellbeing in Focus | 🔗 Make It Last | 🔥Intentional Friction
Event Flow:
Inspire – Welcome, art experience, and the Echoing Green story
Explore – Breakout dialogues with special guests
Integrate – Collective sharing, reflection & next steps
Facilitators & guests:
Juliana González
LinkedIn - Global Partner of the Kaospilot Experience Design Program, Juliana is a transformation consultant whose work bridges conscious leadership, strategic thinking, and experience design. She has collaborated with organizations across five continents, helping teams and individuals expand awareness and plant seeds of meaningful change. Founder of Sooreal and a core contributor to the Echoing Green project, she co-authored the strategies being shared in this webinar.
Antònia Folguera
LinkedIn - At Sónar+D, she curates talks, performances, and exhibitions that weave together electronic music, digital culture, and emerging technologies. With a background in curatorial direction and strategic foresight, her work explores how art, science, and technology continually reshape culture. She has designed programs on AI, synthetic voices, and posthuman aesthetics, always inviting audiences to engage with the future of creativity. For this session, she will create a short exploration of the theme through music.
Jessica Robles-Morales, JD
LinkedIn - Jessica leads the planning and execution of Echoing Green events, ensuring that our engagements are accessible, inclusive, and highly impactful for our growing community. Jessica is an event producer with over eight years of experience in higher education and the nonprofit sector. With incredible attention to detail and a structured logistical event flow, Jessica specializes in handling stressful event situations with grace. Before joining Echoing Green, Jessica planned cultivation and stewardship events for Development and Alumnae Relations at Barnard College. Jessica believes all events should be produced with an intersectional and inclusive lens to ensure a positive guest experience while advancing the event's goals.
Letícia Schuelter
LinkedIn - Letícia is a community & experience designer and the Head of Community & Belonging at The Bloom, a global platform for social impact professionals. She develops the Meaningful Togetherness Framework, bridging research, practice, and experience design. Her work brings learning and community to life as spaces of connection, participation, and transformation.
Lais Glück
Founder of Glück. Designing purpose-centered brands, experiences and products. She will host a break out room on the gathering strategy: Intentional Friction.
Tom Goulooze
Tom runs Tomfoolery, an agency that designs & delivers unusual, unforgettable off-sites made to specifically address the needs of your team. Worked with LEGO, Netflix, Spotify, Wetransfer and a bunch of teens. “I believe that if you listen closely; you can tailor experiences that lives up to the potential that your team deserves.”
Miguel Melgarejo
LinkedIn - Miguel is the Director of Experience Strategy at Cocolab, a leading multimedia experience studio based in Mexico City. Miguel recently founded Blobworks, an organization that focuses on training, consulting and designing experiences.
Marite P. Irvine
LINKEDIN – Marite is a Strategic and Futures Designer with a mission to help enterprises use uncertainty as a canvas for possibility, build with imagination and deliver with careful intention. She founded Forge Futures and leads the Ateneo Research Institute for the Futures of Education (RIFE) where she intersects futures research, strategic planning and innovation practices, holding spaces for multi-perspective exchanges and experiences.
Andy Sontag
He is the Program Director of Kaospilot Experience Design professional programs. He has helped organizations such as LEGO, Adidas, Volkswagen design experiences that grow people and relationships. His recent work with Echoing Green, to support them to take how they design convenings to the next level, has resulted in the Gathering Design Strategies being released in this webinar.
Work with Kaospilot
We partner with visionary organizations like LEGO, Echoing Green, and Sitra to co-create tailored learning experience design and training solutions. If you’d like to explore how we can lead a training for your team, don’t hesitate to reach out to Andy Sontag: [email protected].