Prof. Dr. Yongqi LOU is Dean of the College of Design and Innovation at Tongji University in Shanghai, a Board Director of World Design Organization (WDO) and a Vice President of China Industrial Design Association. Lou has been the pioneer in China for design-driven innovation education, research and practices that connect design, business, and technology. He is the founder of Design Harvests, a design-driven urban-rural interaction project; Tongji-Huangpu School of Design and Innovation, the first design thinking K12 school in China; and She Ji — the Journal of Design, Innovation, and Economics published by Tongji and Elsevier. Lou was a Vice President of CUMULUS, International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and Media. He is the Editorial Board Member of the journal Design Issues published by The MIT Press, and the Journal of Visual Arts Published by Taylor & Francis. Lou currently chairs the international advisory board of University of Applied Arts in Vienna. He was invited as the keynote speaker in conferences such as BODW 2018, IFI 2017, IDSA 2016, ACM SIGCHI 2015, WDC 2014 Design Policy Conference, IIT Design Strategy 2013 etc. In 2014, the President of Finland honored Lou with the Order of the Lion of Finland as a Knight , First Class. Lou was elected as an international fellow of Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) in 2019.
