2026 IDC Design Symposium

8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.

Registration & Networking Breakfast

9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.

KEYNOTE – Super Human Leadership: How the Next Great Leaders Will Use AI to Become More Human

Leadership is evolving. The next era of great leadership will be human + AI — a partnership that Dr. Bailey Parnell argues can be better and more human than either alone. There are things that AI simply does better and things that humans do better. Together, leaders can use a co-intelligence that can scale their connection, empathy, impact, and humanity.

Parnell believes that most people — and most leaders — are good. And good leaders have always used every tool available to them in good ways. The challenge is that many leaders simply don’t yet know how to partner with AI well. This keynote charts a path forward to Super Human Leadership, a model for leading with AI to amplify your impact, not replace your humanity.

Drawing from her groundbreaking doctoral research on leadership and AI, and more than a decade of global experience in digital well-being and human-centered leadership, Parnell shows that when used wisely, AI doesn’t diminish us, it scales what’s best in us.

Parnell’s signature keynote style blends storytelling, interactive exercises, and live reflection prompts. Participants will explore real-world examples of leaders using AI for empathy, creativity, and well-being and leave with practical, ethical ways to start their own Super Human Leadership journey.

Presenter:

Dr. Bailey Parnell, Globally Renowned Pioneer in Digital Well-Being and Expert in AI and Human-Centered Leadership.

Dr. Bailey Parnell is a pioneer at the intersection of technology, AI, leadership, and well-being. Named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women, she has partnered with the United Nations, Deloitte, the NFL, and governments worldwide, teaching leaders and teams how to harness AI ethically, better navigate change, and build thriving workplace cultures. As a world-renowned speaker, Parnell delivers research-backed, actionable strategies that help audiences learn to lead with greater humanity, adaptability, and impact in the digital age.

A multi-award-winning entrepreneur and international leadership expert, Parnell is the founder and CEO of SkillsCamp, a soft skills and leadership development company that provides personalized expert-led training solutions that empower high-performing teams, leaders, and organizations. She has spent more than a decade designing leadership programs for such organizations as Microsoft, L’Oréal, GE Aerospace, the Government of Canada, and global universities.

Parnell recently earned her Doctorate in Education in Learning and Organizational Change, where she studied how leaders can use AI for more human-centric leadership practices — research that now informs her groundbreaking approach to what she calls “Super Human Leadership.” Her work has been featured in Forbes, Good Morning America, Inc. magazine, and numerous other publications.

Parnell has also consulted with major media franchises, including Survivor, Love Island, and Big Brother, which gave her unmatched insight into human behaviour in digital environments, including what strengthens or fractures collaboration. Her TEDx talk, “Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health?”, has been viewed by over five million people and inspired her to found the Center for Digital Wellbeing, a charity dedicated to helping people thrive in the digital age.

10:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.

Networking Break

10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.

PRESENTATION – Design Strategy: Integrating Strategic Foresight

Explore advanced methodologies empowering designers to address our most urgent and complex built environment challenges. This session presents a practical framework that merges strategic foresight, systems thinking, and life-centered design. Insights include the differentiation and complementary approach to workplace strategy and strategic foresight, including actionable methods to anticipate complex (“wicked”) problems and build strategies for life-centered environments.

Presenter:

Sabrina Ash | Advanced Strategy Lead, B+H Architects

Sabrina Ash is a Design Strategist and Strategic Foresight practitioner. Her work sits at the intersection of foresight and systems thinking where she helps organizations anticipate change, navigate uncertainty, and design resilient, future-ready environments. Sabrina leads B+H Advanced Strategy, a global consulting practice that connects strategy, design, and foresight. With two decades of experience in commercial design, she has built a multidisciplinary portfolio working with clients across sectors.

11:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Networking Break

12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

PRESENTATION – Technology-Led Design for the Future-Proofed Workplace

The physical office has evolved into a hub for intentional collaboration, yet technology is too often treated as an add-on rather than a foundational design element. We will explore how integration of data and intelligent infrastructure can harmonize physical architecture with digital agility to create truly responsive work environments. We will examine the critical nexus of human experience and technical design—specifically focusing on:

• Human-Centric Optimization: Leveraging smart audio, adaptive camera systems, and environmental sensors (air quality, temperature, and lighting) to improve comfort and individual productivity.
• Seamless Hybrid Equity: Designing meeting spaces that ensure the in-room and remote participant experience is indistinguishable, fostering inclusivity through architectural and technological symbiosis.
• The Future-Proof Framework: Moving away from static installations toward modular, intelligent ecosystems that allow spaces to evolve alongside shifting organizational needs.

Attendees will gain insights into how a technology-forward approach to design can transform the modern office from a static asset into an active, responsive partner in the hybrid work experience.

Presenter:

Courtney Elling | Intelligent Workplace Experience Leader, Cisco

Courtney Elling is an Intelligent Workplace Experience Leader at Cisco working at the intersection of Corporate Real Estate (CRE), Facilities Management, and Enterprise IT, Courtney partners with Fortune 500 enterprises, public sector institutions, and leading design-engineering firms to transform physical workspaces into secure, agile, and sustainable digital assets.

Her work enables organizations to optimize real estate footprints, automate building operations, achieve aggressive ESG targets, and provide frictionless workplace experiences for modern workforces. A recognized thought leader in smart real estate modernization, Courtney is a frequent speaker at industry forums, helping enterprise leaders bridge the gap between physical architecture and intelligent digital infrastructure.

1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Networking Lunch

2:15 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.

PRESENTATION – Almost Bespoke: Creating More Human, Inspiring Furniture at scale

Creating More Human, Inspiring Furniture at Scale explores a design approach that brings expressive form, material character, function, and manufacturability together from the outset. The result is furniture that often feels custom-made—warm, distinctive, and carefully resolved—while remaining practical to produce at scale.

Drawing on both traditional and advanced manufacturing processes, the presentation considers how purposeful detail, honest material expression, and mixed-material compositions can create products that are structurally clear, visually compelling, and adaptable to real interiors. It also explores how flexible configurations and cohesive collection systems give interior designers room for authorship, allowing a product to feel specific to a project without becoming one-off custom work.

Presenter:

Alyssa Coletti | Founder, Nonfiction Creative

Alyssa Coletti is the founder and principal of Nonfiction Creative, a furniture design studio specializing in contract, hospitality, and residential furniture. Her design philosophy is rooted in the pursuit of timelessness and longevity. Through an empathic approach, she creates furniture that is enduring and uplifting, always considering the needs of the end user. She brings expressive form, material, function, and manufacturability together from the outset to create products that remain relevant over time and are practical to produce at scale.

Coletti’s work is known for warm, unexpected details and materials used in ways that are both honest and surprising. Her collections give interior designers the freedom to create a cohesive expression through considered material selections and configurations.

Since founding Nonfiction Creative in 2010, Coletti has collaborated with Teknion, Studio TK, DARRAN, HBF, Martin Brattrud, Gunlocke, and Decca. Her work has received numerous industry honors, including Interior Design magazine’s 2025 HiP Product Designer of the Year; HiP and Best of Year awards and finalist recognitions; Best of NeoCon Editor’s Choice, Gold, and Silver awards; The Architect’s Newspaper Best of Products awards; and Metropolis Likes awards. Coletti earned her degree in industrial design from Purdue University and has worked in-house at Bernhardt Design, Lenovo, and Williams-Sonoma Home, as well as teaching product design at Appalachian State University.

3:15 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Networking Break

3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

WORKSHOP – Design Your Influence: Building a Brand That Stands Out

Design Your Brand
Define what makes you distinctive, build a recognizable point of view, and translate it consistently across your portfolio and digital presence.

Design for Discovery
Understand how algorithms influence visibility, what drives engagement, and how to create content that gets discovered without compromising your creative identity.

Turn Influence into Opportunity
Move from visibility to business impact through relationships, collaboration and experiences.

Takeaway/Workshop + Q&A
Close with three actions: Define your signature. Build your visibility. Create opportunity.

Presenter:

Ekaterina Dobrokhotova | Vice President of Marketing, Miele

Ekaterina Dobrokhotova is a growth-focused marketing executive who blends corporate leadership with creator-level consumer engagement. As VP of Marketing at Miele

4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Break

6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

VODAs Cocktails (Separate ticket required)

Enjoy a delicious cocktail before the VODAs kicks off at Ricarda’s.

Please note, Design Symposium registration does not include attendance to IDC’s Awards Celebration. Attendees must have a separate ticket to attend this event.

7:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

VODAs Gala (Separate ticket required)

Join IDC at Ricarda’s in Toronto, Ont. to celebrate and honour our members’ achievements at this awards celebration. The event will celebrate winners of the 2026 Interior Projects, Product Innovation, and the Student Competition.

IDC VODAs gala will be presented during a sit-down dinner. Dress code is business attire.

LOCATION:

Ricarda’s
134 Peter St, Toronto, ON M5V 1X6 (View map)

Please note, Design Symposium registration does not include attendance to IDC’s Awards Celebration. Attendees must have a separate ticket to attend this event.

8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.

Registration & Breakfast

9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.

IN CONVERSATION– Transformtion of University Commons by Zeidler (Calgary, Alberta)

How can the transformation of an existing academic building create a more connected, inclusive, and adaptable campus experience?

This session explores the transformation of the University of Alberta’s historic University Commons from a faculty-specific environment into a shared, student-centred academic and social hub. The discussion will examine how a central atrium, flexible learning environments, consolidated student services, seasonal gathering spaces, and student-informed wellness spaces improve navigation, accessibility, connection, and belonging.

The discussion will also explore how shared-use planning, student participation, Indigenous storytelling, and thoughtful integration within a complex existing structure helped challenge traditional models of departmental ownership.

Participants will gain insight into how interior design can support institutional change while improving student experience, wellbeing, interdisciplinary interaction, and long-term flexibility.

Presenter:

Sean Crawford | IDC Past President, Partner, Zeidler Architecture

Sean grew up in a family of contractors and builders. He started his professional career on jobsites, and then as a drafter, and estimator. After the family business was bought out, while he was working for a developer in Japan, Sean returned to school to pursue a degree in Interior Design. Sean was always drawn to planning and design and was fortunate enough to see a few of his designs executed while working in Japan. Although he looked at architecture, Sean ultimately decided the level of detail and the interaction of interior spaces that interior design focused on would be a better fit. He has worked in a range of firms from two-person interior design firms to larger architecture and interior design firms with over 300 people/employees. Currently, he is a partner at a national architecture and interior design practice and leads the interior design team.

Moderator:

Trevor Kruse | CEO, Interior Designers of Canada

Trevor Kruse has enjoyed a 35-year career as a professional interior designer along with nearly three decades of volunteer service on provincial, national, and international boards, including the Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario (ARIDO), the Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA), the Society of British Interior Designers (SBID), and the International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers (IFI).

He has forged strong relationships with academia, government, media, industry partners, and design trade shows and events, along with IDC’s allied associations such as the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), the International Interior Design Association (IIDA), the Interior Design Continuing Education Council (IDCEC) and the Council for Interior Design Qualification (CIDQ).

10:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.

Networking Break

10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.

IN CONVERSATION – Design for Cultural Continuity: awâsisak kâ-nîmîhtocik St. Francis School

How can design strengthen cultural identity while supporting contemporary learning environments?

This session explores the design of awâsisak kâ-nîmîhtocik St. Francis School and the opportunity to create an educational environment where Cree identity, language, teachings and traditional ways of knowing are woven into everyday experience.  Guided by a community-led design process, the school’s spatial organization, material expression, wayfinding and learning environments were shaped to reflect a journey of growth and learning, progressing from earth to forest to sky.

The conversation will examine how Cree language, artwork, storytelling and cultural practices are integrated through the school to support daily learning, connection and belonging.  It will also highlight innovative design solutions, including building systems that accommodate smudging and spaces that support cultural practices as part of everyday school life.

Participants will gain insights into how architecture and interior design can work together to foster cultural continuity, support language revitalization, strengthen community connection and create environments where students see themselves, their culture and their future reflected in the spaces where they learn.

Presenter:

Keshia Caplette | IDC Past President, Interior Designer, Kindrachuk Agrey Architecture

Keshia Caplette is a Métis interior design with over a decade of experience delivering educational, healthcare, workplace and community project.  Through a collaborative and community led design approach, she is passionate about creating spaces that support well-being, reflect cultural identify and strengthen connections to community, culture and place. Her work on awâsisak kâ-nîmîhtocik St. Francis School explored how architecture and interior design can support Cree language, culture and ways of knowing within a contemporary learning environment.  Keshia believes thoughtful design can strengthen community connections and create lasting impact for future generations.

Moderator:

Trevor Kruse | CEO, Interior Designers of Canada

Trevor Kruse has enjoyed a 35-year career as a professional interior designer along with nearly three decades of volunteer service on provincial, national, and international boards, including the Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario (ARIDO), the Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA), the Society of British Interior Designers (SBID), and the International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers (IFI).

He has forged strong relationships with academia, government, media, industry partners, and design trade shows and events, along with IDC’s allied associations such as the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), the International Interior Design Association (IIDA), the Interior Design Continuing Education Council (IDCEC) and the Council for Interior Design Qualification (CIDQ).

11:45 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Break

3:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

DESIGN TOURS (Separate registration required to attend)

Limberlost Place @ George Brown – 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. (1 hour) – [1st Group]

Limberlost Place @ George Brown – 4:30 – 5:30 p.m. (1 hour) – [2nd Group]

With the commission of Limberlost Place to attract diverse and talented students from around the world, George Brown Polytechnic successfully demonstrates that it is a world-class institution and a leader in sustainability.

Since the beginning of its construction in 2018, the building has received over 20 awards and recognitions, along with international attention through press and speaking engagements to advance mass timber and sustainable design. Its ambition and impact attracted donors eager to be associated with it – ultimately leading to the establishment of the building’s naming rights.

The success of this building is evidence of timber’s strength and flexibility as a material, offering a uniquely Canadian solution for low-carbon structures and emerging possibilities in the construction industry. We hope that Limberlost Place infuses excitement into mass timber projects, generating demand across the industry and ultimately encouraging suppliers to invest, expand, and scale their operations.

LOCATION: George Brown College (185 Queens Quay East)

Simons @ Eaton Centre – 4:30 – 5:30 p.m. (1 hour)

To continue its expansion in Canada’s most competitive market, La Maison Simons at the CF Toronto Eaton Centre is designed to both appeal to new consumer preferences and cater to a wide range of demographics.

By breaking up the traditional sightlines found in large-format stores, leveraging a pavilion approach to delineate between departments, and embedding immersive moments throughout the space, Simons is encouraging customers to venture deeper, and explore.

As a proudly Canadian brand, Simons is also directly supporting Canadian artists through its continued commitment to embedding culture and arts into its spaces. The result is an experience-first destination, designed to attract, connect, and engage with a new Toronto customer base.

Tour Leaders:

Mhay Trinidad, Associate Interior Designers, Gensler

Marwa Istanbuli, Associate Interior Designers, Gensler

LOCATION: Eaton Centre (260 Yonge Street)