Judges

Juyoung Chang’s main area of research is in ‘design in cultural context’ with a particular focus on Korean and Asian culture. Agreeing with Agenda 21’s motto of “think global, act local,” which is similar to what the ADCF is aiming for, she decided to join the UN-led SDGs activities, and ADCF become a member institution of the SDSN(Sustainable Development Solutions Network). She also founded the ‘DSU-DESIS(Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability) Lab’ in 2019.

ADCF was awarded the national research grant from the Korean National Research Foundation from 2019 to 2025, and the research topic is “developing creative design curriculums based on Korean culture and a gamification approach.” As a principal investigator of the research project, her passion is to contribute to the sustainable development of local communities through design education.

Melanie Sarantou is Professor in Social Design at the Kyushu University in Japan and Adjunct Professor at the University of Lapland, Finland. Her PhD holistically mapped Namibian craft and design through a postcolonial lens. Sarantou has worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the artistic research project ‘Margin to Margin’ (2016-2019) funded by Koneen Säätiö and Profi 2 Strategic Funding from the University of Lapland, investigating how arts and narrative practices impact on marginalised women in communities in various global locations, for example in Namibia, Finland, Russia and Australia. Between 2020 and 2022 her research focused on the role of arts in societies that exist on the margin of Europe in the European Commission-funded Horizon 2020 project titled ‘Action on the Margin: Arts as Social Sculpture’ (AMASS, grant number 870621), as well as the role of social design and arts-based methods in generating more holistic understanding and workable solutions for how to navigate cultural tensions existing with the processes of digitising Indigenous CH in an ethical way.

Masakazu Tani is a currently a professor emeritus, having retired from the Faculty of Design of Kyushu University recently. He served as the dean of the faculty of design, the senior vice president of Kyushu University, and the director of the Center for Designed Futures. His field of specialty is in cultural anthropology, which pursues the social analysis of natural environmental problems in the context of environmental design. Tani has 25 years of field experience in South Asia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and India, studying groundwater contamination due to arsenic, deforestation, and the refugee crisis. Another area of his research interest lies in industrial archaeology, focusing on modernization in British colonial Asia, as well as the evaluation of vernacular architecture as cultural heritage.

Soogil Oh is working as a President of the Korean Association of NGO Studies. He is chairman of Korea NGO Promotion, Policy Committee of Local Sustainability Alliance of Korea, Committee for Sustainable Development of several local governments in Korea. He has received The Medal of Merit from President of Korea (2018).

He studies the topics in the field of governance for sustainable development, collaborative governance, and administrative philosophy, especially focused on locality. He co-authored many books such as Ecomuseum (2022), Public Value: Theory and Practice (2022), Environmental Administration (2020), Success Model for Local Governance (2018), and Our Sustainable City (2017). He translated State of the World of Worldwatch Institute into Korean from 2001 to 2012, and has published many articles on localizing SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals)

Jangsub Lee is Director of Design In Social & Circular Objectives Lab.Director, Social Design Club ‘Sunshine’. he majored in visual design in Seoul and public design in Barcelona. After graduation, he participated in projects and exhibitions in various countries as a designer and artist. In 2010, he founded Action Seoul, a branding agency, to discover excellent local content.

Since 2018, he has been working as a professor at Seoul National University, planning and running a participatory social design project to enable the practical education in this process.

His research lab DISCO (Design In Social & Circular Objectives) participates in solving local social problems through circular design and conducts design consulting to minimize the environmental impact of products and services through collaborative research with companies.