Meet the community extension of the XD team: XDIs

Alina Lagarde

Based out of Paris, Alina is an independent design strategist, focused on UX research & metrics. She has been working in different fields from startups to institutions (Institut Pasteur, INSEE, Sénat) and large corporations (Open, Microsoft, RATP, SNCF, Belron Canada). Prior to working directly with clients she has worked in branding, advertising and communication agencies as designer and lead designer. Find Alina on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Bud Peart

With a long history of digital design across agency and in-house teams, Bud has applied his multidisciplinary design and consultancy skills for some of Australia's leading brands. He enjoys design challenges that reside at the intersection of user, brand and business. He is currently a freelance design consultant and is based out of Melbourne, Australia. Find Bud on LinkedIn.

Chakib Labidi

With a background in industrial design, Chakib is a London based UX consultant and founder of UXPlayground. He has taught user-centred design at Winchester University and UDK Berlin. Chakib has been working for almost 20 years with clients internationally to create digital products and services. Find Chakib on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Claire-Lise Bengué

Claire-Lise is an independent experience designer based in Paris. She has been working in many sectors such as with media (Marie Claire), public services (CNOP), financial services (Saxo) and luxury brands (Hermes). She is passionate about the link between physical and digital spaces.

Find Claire-Lise on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Ethan Parry

Based in Barcelona and committee member of IxDA Barcelona, Ethan is a Service Designer and UX Researcher who has worked with international clients such as Adobe, SEAT, Banco Sabadell and Meliá Hotels. He regularly gives workshops and talks on UX Design, UX Research, Service Design, and Design Sprints. Ethan is also an adjunct professor and guest lecturer at several universities, design schools, and bootcamps. You can find Ethan on LinkedIn, Twitter, or his website.

Farhad Pocha

Farhad is a strategic designer & trainer that excels in bringing people together to identify design challenges and create competent and resilient solutions. He has consulted on, designed, managed, and launched digital products and services for various companies and clients for over 10 years. His education in philosophy & politics, experience with visual design and product management, and extensive technical knowledge, give him an exceptional ability to understand the big picture and provide strong guidance with compelling results. Farhad is based out of Berlin. Find Farhad on LinkedIn.

Hany Rizk

Hany is a UX & Product Strategist based in Berlin, running No BS, an innovation studio that runs Design Sprints to help companies solve real challenges and design meaningful solutions. For over 10 years he has designed and led in-house products and services for large corporations such as Volkswagen, and various startups — including his own Somuchmore that was later acquired. Hany mentors startups and regularly talks on UX, Product, and Innovation. You can find Hany on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Jake Spillane

Jake Spillane is the founder of Antigrav, a full-service design consultancy. Based out of Newcastle NSW, Australia, they focus on collaborating with organisations to create compelling products by leveraging strong conceptual design experience and human-centred design principles to build industry-leading product strategies and eye-catching, highly engaging websites, application, software, and marketing campaigns. Providing their clients with a springboard to become industry leaders and equip them with the knowledge and tools to continually engage their audiences.

Find Jake on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Maria Matloub

Maria is an impact strategist, designer and venture builder based out of Milan, Italy. She runs GGUTT, a design and innovation hub helping organisations accelerate growth by combining purpose with profit, and the Otherdots Foundation. She was previously at Deloitte Digital working on CX and digital transformation projects for large brands across multiple industries. Maria mentors in various accelerators, lectures in design and business universities, co-runs the Founder Institute in Italy, speaks on design and innovation and hosts a podcast, GGUTTALKS. She plays drums and is fluent in four languages. Find Maria on Twitter and LinkedIn

Matthias Ott

Matthias is an independent UX designer and UI engineer based near Stuttgart, Germany. He teaches Interface Prototyping at Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design Kiel, curates the monthly newsletter prototyping.news, and frequently writes about the intersection of design, development, prototyping, and the (Indie)Web. Find Matthias on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Mike Acler

Mike is a designer and design manager with more than 15 years of experience and based out of Prague. Working with clients like O2, Vodafone, Raiffeisenbank or Siemens he enjoys leading discovery sessions, defining strategy and concepts as well as evaluating them with customers. He’s been providing his services independently or through his agency Allprototypes. Find Mike on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Shiro Inoue

Shiro is a Maastricht, Netherlands based design researcher and practitioner in communication design. He has been conducting research on designer's creativity, delivering a series of lectures and hands-on workshops for both universities and enterprises. Find Shiro on Twitter and LinkedIn or his website Shiro Inoue Design Laboratory

Shruthi Sasidaran

With a background in software engineering, Shruthi is a UX Designer based out of Sydney, Australia. Having prior experience with building customer-centric products, she works with international clients to enhance the customer journey on websites. She is passionate about strengthening the collaboration space between designers and developers to produce products that serve both users' and businesses' needs. Find Shruthi on LinkedIn

Tim Kahle

Tim is in digital product design since the late 1990s. He entered the world of conversational design in 2015 and is now designing voice applications at 169 Labs, a voice assistant agency based in Munich and Cologne, Germany. He also runs an event series called ALL ABOUT VOICE. Amazon awarded Tim as one of the few 2018 Alexa Champions and SoundHound nominated him as Top Voice AI Influencer. Find Tim on Twitter, LinkedIn or his website VUI.guru

Yasuhisa Hasegawa

Yasuhisa is a freelance design strategist based out of Tokyo, Japan. He works closely with clients, usually long-term, to improve the design process and the digital product experience. He has been a public speaker and engaging with Japanese web/app communities for a long time. He also publishes articles and podcasts about design. Find Yasuhisa on Twitter, LinkedIn, or on his website