Niki Dun

Co-founder and Director

Niki Dun, dfd

Niki's work in international development began with a bicycle ambulance for developing communities designed during her Bachelor's degree in Industrial Design at the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver, Canada. With a strong belief that as a problem-solving profession designers have the potential to be an invaluable resource to the developing world, Niki co-founded Design For Development as a means of harnessing the valuable skills and energy of Canadian designers to create meaningful solutions to real world problems.

In addition to holding a degree in Industrial Design, Niki is a graduate of the University of British Columbia with a BA in Asian Studies. She has experience in marketing and communication, training, project management and believes that thorough research is paramount to the problem-solving process.

"As a problem-solving profession we have the potential to be an invaluable resource to the world - and especially to those parts of the world that don't have the privilege of education and access to information that we do. For too long the design profession as a whole has been encouraged to believe that good design means the ability to create a smaller cell phone, a sleek auto exterior, or a product that will show well at Milan.

While I certainly value well-designed and beautiful products, I think that we need to move beyond those definitions and really start to look at what we can contribute on a world scale as part of the global community."

Working with SAGWA