Milan is the Community Design Lead at the Hasso Plattner Design Institute, aka “the d.school” at Stanford University. With a history in academic activism and teaching, Milan established a rhythm of designing partnerships, projects, collaborations, courses, workshops, and teaching elective courses that combine elements of community connectedness and design thinking. The mixTAPE x maniFESTO has played a vital role in building bridges of community on Stanford’s campus and working as a tool to bring new community members (e.g. students, faculty, community partners, etc) to the d.school and taking the d.school and designing thinking on the road to audiences that cannot access the d.school and or, have no idea the d.school or design thinking exist. Milan brought his community activism, life experience, and love for music to complement the design-thinking aspects of this workshop and has been sharing “The Blueprint” with the world ever since.
Jay-Z. (2001). The Blueprint [Album]. Roc-A-Fella Records.
With a rich history in teaching around the Bay Area, Milan brought a clear teaching philosophy to the mixTAPE x maniFESTO workshop:
“I learned many moons ago from my mentors and educators that you're always teaching to each individual and their life experience. That means at any given time, (give or take) 25 different lives are looking for you to see them, hear them, learn from them, and teach them. I don't care if they're all from Berkeley, all from Richmond, all from Palo Alto, it's still 25 different lived experiences. So my job as a teacher is to figure out what the 25 people need, individually, while designing a message (no matter what the subject matter is) that speaks to everybody in the room.”