Professional Development: Dignified Futures 2026 (Chicago)

A two-day convening of health and human services leaders, social innovators, futures thinkers, and designers committed to centering dignity in complex systems.

Dignified Futures is a two-day convening of health and human services leaders, social innovators, futures thinkers, and designers committed to centering dignity in complex systems. The conference will take place March 18–19, 2026, at the Institute of Design at Illinois Tech, Chicago.

We face an escalating tension between speed, efficiency, resource constraints, and our capacity to partner meaningfully. In that tension, design often abandons dignity. Dignified Futures invites participants to intercept that downward spiral—to create updrafts of possibility that pull us forward together.

What Happens There
Over two days, the conference will include:

• Workshops, keynotes, and ignite talks 
• Open Space sessions, allowing attendees to help co-create the agenda in real time and lead emergent conversations.
• Networking, surprises, and community building that empowers all to meet new people and knit new relationships.

Themes & Focus Areas
The conference spans multiple design practices (e.g. futures thinking, systems thinking, experience design and innovation, inclusivity and belonging, participatory practice) and sectors including health & human services, public health, social innovation, and equity in systems. 

Why It Matters

• To recenter dignity in design, reclaiming it as a fundamental point of focus rather than an afterthought.
• To elevate emerging practice in designing systems that sustain health, equity, and social justice.
• To forge cross-disciplinary partnerships and co-design actionable strategies rooted in lived experience.