The Current: Design and Technology | The Responsibility and Importance of Design

Join us for a virtual lightning talk on May 11 with Parsons student Estef Chavez Ruiz and Sharanya Ravichandran, Chair of IDSA and Principal Designer at Dow Jones.

The final episode of Season 2 of The Current will air on May 11 with Parsons student Estef Chavez Ruiz and Sharanya Ravichandran, Chair of IDSA and Principal Designer at Dow Jones, exploring the opportunity designers have to step into a larger role as advocates and leaders in ethics and governance.

We are living through a pivotal moment in innovation where the decisions being made today will shape how technology and products affect people for years to come. History has shown us what happens when innovation moves faster than accountability. Designers sit at a unique intersection, close to the process and equipped with the skills to influence it, yet in fast-moving environments, the focus often defaults to execution.

This conversation aims to discuss:

• How can designers can be proactive voices for governance rather than waiting to be invited into the conversation
• The structural barriers designers face when trying to advocate for ethics inside of organizations, and understanding where those barriers originate.
• What it would mean to redefine the practice around influence and accountability in design versus a focus on deliverables as outcomes
• What skills and positioning designers need to build now to hold genuine authority over the ethical direction of product development

About Estef Chavez Ruiz:
Estef Chavez is a current MS SDM student at Parsons School of Design with experience across early stage startups and corporate innovation, including work at Whirlpool designing the future of appliances and the home. Being close to product development raises questions she keeps returning to: who is making the decisions, what technology is genuinely improving people’s lives, and what things might not be worth building at all. In a landscape moving faster than ever, she sees governance as one of the most critical and least understood levers in product development. Understanding how it works and where design fits into that conversation is what drives her curiosity in this space.

About Sharanya Ravichandran:
Sharanya Ravichandran is a design leader focused on the intersection of design, ethics, and technology. Her work centers on how designers operate within complex systems, and how they can more effectively shape decisions in environments defined by scale, regulation, and rapid technological change.

Over the past two decades, she has held leadership roles at The Wall Street Journal, JPMorgan Chase, and PubMatic, leading work across media, fintech, and advertising platforms. She is particularly interested in how design moves beyond execution to influence strategy, governance, and long-term outcomes.

With a background spanning computer science and human-centered design, Sharanya brings a pragmatic lens to questions of responsibility, advocacy, and systems thinking in design practice. She currently serves as Chair of the Industrial Designers Society of America New York City chapter, supporting a more connected and future-facing design community.