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Brad Rogers is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering at the Polytechnic campus of Arizona State University, and is the Director of Research and Development for GlobalResolve, an interdisciplinary social entrepreneurship initiative at Arizona State University that seeks to leverage the skills and talents of students and faculty at ASU and international partner universities to develop sustainable enterprises in the developing world. While at ASU he has taught more than 40 different courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels in engineering and in social entrepreneurship. He has also worked in industry in both conventional and alternative energy conversion systems. Since 2007 in his capacity within GlobalResolve he has initiated programs and managed in-country student teams from ASU and partner universities in the developing world that have worked on multiple projects. Examples include the design and construction of a microbial fuel cell composting latrine in West Africa, installation of a gelled ethanol plant that produces clean cooking fuel in a rural Ghanaian village, the development of highly efficient gelfuel stoves, a thermoelectric driven sustainable lighting system for the BoP market, a prototype refrigerator that runs solely on charcoal, the distribution of a water filtration system for the impoverished Ghanaian village of Fawomanye, and several other projects.

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Mark Henderson is Professor of Engineering and Associate Dean of the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue. He is a co-founder and Director since 2006 of GlobalResolve (http://globalresolve.asu.edu), an ASU program to provide sustainable technological and economic development to base of the pyramid communities primarily in Ghana, Mexico and Arizona. GlobalResolve has worked in several villages on clean water, off-grid electricity generation and smokeless cooking systems among other projects, with the express goal of helping communities use these technology solutions to create business ventures. His international design interest began by starting the Global Engineering Design Team from 1998-2008 and the Nomadic Design Academy with 6 other universities from 2002-2004. He is also a co-founder of InnovationSpace (http://innovationspace.asu.edu), a multi-disciplinary product development experience and led the development of a new (2011) Technological Entrepreneurship and Management program on ASU’s Polytechnic campus in which the GlobalResolve courses reside leading to major, minor and certificate in Social Entrepreneurship. Although his early research was in geometric modeling, his recent publications center more on global design education, design thinking and curriculum development, especially around social entrepreneurship.

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John Hiroomi Takamura Jr.
Associate Professor of Industrial Design, The Design School,
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University

Bringing over 17 years of industrial design practice experience, John Takamura has been instrumental in implementing brand and product development programs in both Asia and North America. Early in his career, John was hired by ODS, an international market research and design consultancy, and served as the Design Director for their Industrial Design Division under the guidance of international designers Luigi Colani (Renowned Transportation Designer, DE), Hans Muth (Former BMW Chief of Styling, DE), and Barry Weaver (Co-founder Roberts Weaver Group, UK). John later joined Sharp Corporation’s elite advanced design team in Tokyo where he helped to develop the Sharp ViewCam concept that would later become a standard video camera configuration in the global market. Upon returning to the U.S. John established Takamura Design, a trans-disciplinary design office, servicing clients in Asia and the U.S. from the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1997 John joined Fitch Inc. to establish and manage the Fitch office in Japan. Serving as Vice President of the Japan office, John was involved as the Design Director, Project Manager, and Account Manager for numerous Japanese companies in the automotive, electronics, consumer goods, and service industries, and also served as manager of the Fitch Japan-based innovation lab called the MadLab (Marketing and Design Laboratory). One of John’s most notable programs was the revitalization of the Nissan Motor Company brand. John served as global manager for the international (U.S., Japan, UK) trans-disciplinary design and research team responsible for the creation of the new Nissan brand mark and corporate logo design and branding guidelines. John returned to the U.S in 2001 as Vice President and Director of Client Services for product design at the Fitch San Francisco office. John was responsible for the development and management of all Japanese accounts, and some key accounts within the U.S. consulting in the in-car telematics and computing and consumer computer arena. After leaving Fitch Inc. John was hired to develop and lead a trans-disciplinary design team at X Product Development, a division of Xyron Inc. in Scottsdale Arizona. His responsibilities involved the management of the entire creative team in both industrial design and visual communications as well as to manage the Xploratorium, an innovation lab for creative product development and engineering. With a major in industrial design, John received his BA in design from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and furthered his studies at Art Center Pasadena. He received his Master’s of Science in Design degree in Human Factors in industrial design from Arizona State University. John is currently an Associate Professor of Industrial Design in The Design at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University where he teaches both lower and upper division BSD (Bachelor of Science in Design degree) industrial design courses and MSD (Master’s of Science in Design degree) design research and MID (Master’s of Industrial Design) graduate design courses. John is active in developing corporate sponsored university research, industrial design, and branding programs within various consumer product and service industries. John works with the First Innovations American Indian Studies program at ASU in teaching classes on American Indian Entrepreneurship for Sustainability. John also serves as Director of Design for GlobalResolve™, a social entrepreneurship program at the College of Technology & Innovation at ASU’s Polytechnic Campus where he is responsible for ethnographic research and design programs for products and services intended for the BoP (Base of the Pyramid) market in the developing world.

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