Connie Yowell discusses the strategic approach underlying the MacArthur Foundation's new $50 million initiative in Digital Media and Learning. Based on lessons learned from how the internet has changed markets, Dr. Yowell outlines a vision of the future of learning and education along the "long tail" and will describe possible strategies for attaining this vision.

Connie M. Yowell is Director for Digital Media, Learning & Education, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and a Program Officer in the Foundation's Program on Human and Community Development. In this role, she focuses on grants relating to public education, and on the implications for education of young people's use of digital media. Prior to joining the Foundation, Yowell was an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where her work included the study of reasons why Latino youth drop out of high school. Previously she worked as a Policy Analyst in the Office of Policy and Planning of the U.S. Department of Education. Before that Yowell was a Research Assistant at the University of California at San Francisco and at Stanford University.


The IIT Institute of Design Strategy Conference is an international executive forum addressing how businesses can use design to explore emerging opportunities, solve complex problems, and achieve lasting strategic advantage.

Global businesses increasingly appreciate how design and design thinking can provide them with high-level, strategic value and competitive advantage. In an intensely competitive market, with ever more diverse and demanding customers, executives are often left unsure of exactly what products, communications and services to create for what segments of the market. Design, with its ability to understand users, redefine problems and create systemic, human-centered solutions, can help companies better understand their customer's daily lives, and lead directly to valuable (and valued) offerings that are effectively tailored to their market.