projects designed by youth, for the
Pedal/Petals was co-designed by Beam Center Instructors and teens in the student government at Fannie Lou Freedom High School for their annual Peace Block Party. Peace Block is a youth led event against gang and gun violence, instead promoting unity and positive engagement in the community. On the interior of each petal is a theme of self-care that has been important to each student during their past four years at school. As the bicycle is pedaled, the flower opens through a modified cam mechanism exposing these messages of self-care and symbolizing the self-esteem that blooms as a result.
Christal is currently a teacher and a part time Childrens Library Information Assistant. She enjoys creating and developing programs at the library. She leads most of the science and technology programs held at the branch. She loves reading, learning, and growing!
Ellen Sitkin is a self-employed Design + Strategy Consultant. Bio Coming Soon!
Andy Saldaña is the Director of Operations for NY Tech Alliance (NYTA), a non-profit organization that runs the largest Meetup group in the world with over 58,000 members and a mission to strengthen the NY tech industry through building community. He also co-organizes the Queer Tech Meetup NYC group, manages operations for a startup (Livecube) and advocates for increased diversity in tech. Hes a lover of coffee, food, spirits and the conversation that happens while enjoying them.
42nd Street between 5th & 6th Avenues (Entrance on 42nd Street)
Jeanne Kelly is the Director of Product Design at the Tech Lab at A+E Networks. Bio Coming Soon!
Anke Stohlmann is the Founder of Lil Stories. Bio Coming Soon!
Emoti-Con! is made possible through the support of our generous sponsorsand supports youth-serving organizations throughout NYC.Download our PDFto learn about becoming an Emoti-Con! sponsor.
Henry Martes is a Senior Interaction Designer at frog design. He works with some of the worlds leading brands and products using a human centered approach to design. For his day job he focuses on the design of websites, apps and experiences for large corporations, but in his spare time Henry is also an entrepreneur providing design and strategy consulting to small business owners. He is experienced across many industries ranging from healthcare to banking and has practiced domestically and internationally as an architect, urban designer, and user experience designer. Henry has a love for cities, design, and technology. He holds a Masters in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University, and a Bachelors of Architecture from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Not long ago, Jibeh made a conscious decision to wear a hijab. It made her feel connected to both her family and her religion. Yet, many misunderstand her reasons and see her as a victim or a threat. To change minds, she created a documentary in which schoolmates try on the hijab and react to her questions. After deeply researching a social issue, Island Schoolers use low- and high-tech tools to raise awareness of problems & help solve them. Topics this year include stereotypes & bullying, gun control, media addiction & Islamaphobia.
Whats Emoti-Con like?Watch this video and click the past events above to learn about the winners, keynotes and judges for each previous event:
Andrea Mozo is a Product Manager at Globaloria, Carnegie Learning. Bio Coming Soon!
Gerad OShea is a researcher and co-founder of Applied Curiosity Research. He has an extensive background developing and evaluating educational games, programs, curriculum, TV, and strategic messaging for many audiences and clients. His work includes research to develop and evaluate educational apps for the US Department of Education, interactive TV episodes for Nickelodeon, comic books and podcasts for MIT grad students, and a summer program to help NYC youth develop career skills for the NYC Office of Community Schools. Gerad was also the Assistant Band Director at The Boston Arts Academy before his research life began.
Zaman Baksh is a Technical Program Manager at Google for over 10 years. He is currently responsible for the successful implementation of local experiences on the Google Assistant – enabling users to engage in two-way conversations with Google across many devices. his team engineers solutions to answer user queries on everything from deciding where to go for dinner, finding your nearest bank branch, figuring out when the next train to the city departs or navigating to your friends house. In his previous roles, he has lead engineering teams on Ads – building publisher platforms and Geo – enhancing semantic location and exploring points of interest on Google maps. He started his career as a software engineer at a startup company within the stored-value/debit card processing industry. He enjoys mentoring and speaking to young students interested in Computer Science and host numerous events at local schools and at Google to help promote and guide interest in this field.
Jeff Lambert is a librarian and technology integrator interested in how libraries serve as community hubs for both formal and informal learning. He is the Digital Literacy Coordinator at Queens Library, where he works with staff to offer technology classes for patrons of all ages on topics ranging from basic keyboard to coding in Python. Jeff has led workshops for young people on 3D printing, block coding, audio and video editing, and physical computing in library makerspaces in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York.
showcase of digital media and technology
Maya Setiawan is a Local Search Language Specialist for Google. Before coming to United States Maya used to live in 3 different countries Indonesia, Singapore and Qatar. She moved to California – the bay area right after that and now she is in New York working for Google Search. She is so grateful to be able to move around and work with some of the greatest companies around the world Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways, Google Maps, Uber and Facebook. Her passion is always about cooking but she does love dancing, autocross-ing, and traveling.
Millner creates engaging environments and tools that support learners of all ages increasing their capacity to innovate – leveraging a hands-on approach. Dr. Millner especially enjoys designing, developing, and deploying technological systems that allow novices to invent their own interactions between the physical world and the digital world. An example hardware interface is the PicoBoard (selling at ), a sensor board that Dr. Millner co-created while helping to invent theScratch programming language. An example software interface comes from a startup that Millner co-founded, Modkit – producer of the graphical programming interface to the VexIQ robotics system.
Winston Avil graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2014 with a Bachelors degree in Computer Science. Since then he has worked at the quantitative hedge fund PDT Partners on the trading business tech team writing software to facilitate post trade operations. Winston loves understanding different problem spaces and figuring out how to apply software to fix or improve those areas. Winston has a broad computer science experience writing everything from low level systems like his own operating system to front end web applications.
Natarajan Krishnaswami works as a senior software engineer at Google working on public statistics, following lengthy stints at at Bloomberg LP and IBM. He is passionate about making open data accessible and useful to communities. He was chosen in 2015 and 2017 for Lesbians Who Techs LGBTQ Tech and Innovation Summit fellowships, for which he volunteered on projects on transgender inclusion and eviction prevention.
showcase of digital media and technology
Katrina Ortega (M.L.I.S.) is the Young Adult Librarian at the Hamilton Grange Branch of the New York Public Library. Originally from El Paso, Texas, she has lived in New York City for six years. She is a strong advocate of continuing education (in all of its forms) and is very interested in learning new ways that public libraries can provide higher education to all. She is also very interested in working with non-traditional communities in the library, particularly incarcerated and homeless populations. While pursuing her own higher education, she received two Bachelors of Arts degrees (in English and in History), a Masters of Arts in English, and a Masters of Library and Information Sciences. Katrina loves reading most anything, but particularly loves literary fiction, YA novels, and any type of graphic novel or comic. Shes also an Anglophile when it comes to film and TV, and is a sucker for British period pieces. In her free time, if shes not reading, Katrina loves to walk around New York, looking for good places to eat.
Paul is Design Director at This Also, where he leads teams to create unique and memorable products, blending design, branding and strategic thinking for clients including Samsung, Nike, and Google. Industry recognition includes IxDA and Webby Awards, teaching with Hyper Island, and jury member for the D&AD New Blood Awards.
Millner contributes to multiple research communities, particularly conferences that focus on: tangible user interface design, interaction design and children, and digital media and learning. Dr. Millner, a patent holder, earned a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT; a M.S. in Human Computer Interactions from Georgia Institute of Technology; and a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California.
Katie wrote a software for over a decade then decided instead of making things someone else designed, she could design them herself. She switched to UX design, eventually leading a design team for an educational-tech company. These days Katie combines her love of software engineering, design and inspiring others in her role as a computer science teacher and Girls Who Code mentor, both at The Dalton School. Lately Katie has also been studying machine learning and mentors an ML course on Coursera.
Kieran Gopaul is a Project Manager at Richard Attias & Associates, a global strategic communications and event production company. He manages content, production & interactive technology, audience generation, and logistics teams to produce live experiences that have strategic impact for governments, foundations, and corporations. He has contributed to the production of several youth forums and previously facilitated participatory theatre arts program for youth development. He received his M.A. in Applied Theatre Arts from University of Southern California and B.A. in Economics from Brown University.
Barrie Grinberg is the Senior Director of Community Partnerships at Venture for America, a fellowship program that aims to create economic opportunity in American cities by mobilizing the next generation of entrepreneurs. In her role, Barrie leads the team responsible for VFAs startup partnerships, community engagement, regional fundraising, and in-city programming. Prior to joining VFA, Barrie was a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. Through her work, Barrie has learned that a team of determined, kind people with a thoughtful plan can accomplish almost anything. She has also learned the importance of knowing the names of local sports teams when working across several U.S. cities. Originally from the Boston area, Barrie is a graduate of New York University.
Corrie Davidson is a user engagement and retention specialist. Through designing and fostering meaningful experiences for people both inside and outside of a product and facilitating connections between a products creators and users, Corrie works to improve overall product success and user satisfaction. At Google she helped create and grow the Local Guides program, improving the Google Maps experience for over a billion people, and is currently working on creating user-centric products and experiences in Google Search – specificallyBulletin, From Google.
Charles Okochu is a Network Engineering Manager at Marketaxess Corp. Bio Coming Soon!
Kimiya is a design thinker and entrepreneur from Northern California with a background in cognitive science and education technology. She recently earned her MA in Learning, Design, and Technology at Stanford and is now working in User Experience Research at Google for Education. She enjoys solving interesting problems through creative and thoughtful human-centered approaches. Today, she is new grantee of the 4.0 Schools Tiny Fellowship, as co-founder ofCandid, a mobile tool that helps families have better conversations about important topics in comprehensive sex education. Past adventures include teaching Art & Science at UC Berkeley and hostingThe Creative Consciousness. She loves learning new things, cooking colorful meals, and exploring new cities.
Karen Ng is the Community Lead, Program Manager at Google. Bio Coming Soon!
For this project for the Verizon Innovative Learning program we partnered with my familys salon business in the Bronx. We used design thinking to empathize with the owners and workers of the business and learn about the challenges they face. We then brainstormed solutions and created technology-focused solutions such as AR posters and a website for the business. Also, we created a 360 video of the salon!
EmpQuest is an application prototype developed by the Creative Tech Teen Interns (CTTI) at Tech Kids Unlimited (TKU). After researching needs of the autistic community and related statistics on employment and education, the interns decided to create an app that helps the young adults on the spectrum with the job application process through games, video lessons, quizzes, and more. This project was developed over a few weeks, involving research, brainstorming, prototyping, and user testing.
Thinking about Presenting?Read the Emoti-ConPlanning Guide for Project Teamsfor answers to all of your questions!
Diane Levitt is the Sr. Director of K-12 Education for Cornell Tech, driving their engagement with the NYC computing education community, including the Dept. of Educations CS4All initiative, and works with individual schools to catalyze K-12 computer science. She oversees the Teacher in Residence program, which provides content coaching in CS to teachers in elementary and middle schools, and is responsible for Cornell Techs annual conference, To Code and Beyond, convening educators, nonprofit and industry leaders, policymakers and funders to examine best practices and innovative solutions in K-12 computing education. Before coming to Cornell Tech, Diane was the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at Belkin. She holds a Masters in Early Childhood Education from Bank Street and a BS from Barnard College, Columbia University.
from programs throughout the five boroughs compete in the premier
Mark Mathias is the founder of Maker Faire Westport, Connecticuts largest event focused on creativity and innovation and one of the top 5% of all Maker Faires worldwide. He is also serving his fourth term as a member of the Westport, Connecticut Board of Education. In his spare time, Mark consults as a Chief Information Officer.
Katherine Loiselle graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2014 with a Bachelors degree in Civil Engineering, and from Lehigh University in 2016 with a Masters of Engineering in Structural Engineering degree. She started her career at a construction management firm in Washington, D.C., where she worked on high profile projects, including the WMATA metro line improvements. Since graduating from Lehigh, she has been designing bridges with Dewberry Engineers in Bloomfield, New Jersey.
Dennis Morgan is a Sr. Product Manager at Michael Kors. When Dennis first started working with lasers over 20 years ago, he thought lasers were for shooting and blowing things up! Then he learned how to use them to capture beautiful patterns of light in film that could recreate exact, unbelievable replicas of the world around us frozen in time. When he started working in atomic physics 18 years ago, he thought atoms were only the tiny pieces of the universe that swirled around us, and combined to make up what we see in everyday people and things. Then he learned how to use them to measure time and frequency to a level of precision that would enable vehicles to circumnavigate the globe unassisted, finding their way when they were far from home. When he started playing video games many years ago, games were something he dropped twenty-five cents into almost everyday instead of buying school lunch. Then he learned to make games that could change the fundamental way school lunches are prepared, packaged, distributed, and recycled, so school administrators could save money and be rewarded for cleaner disposal. Now, he is working with the data that humans produce, which swirls and expands around us daily, recreating exact, unbelievable replicas of who we are in this world Wonder what he will learn next?
Emoti-Con is NYCs biggest showcase for young designers, makers, technologists, and tinkerers who believe in digital innovation as a tool for positive change in the world around them.2018 will be Emoti-Cons 10th Anniversary!
projects designed by youth, for the
Nathalie Leon is a bright-eyed interdisciplinary innovator studying systems engineering and aerodynamics. As preposterous as her ideas may seem, she will never be afraid to say or pursue them. Nathalie thinks out loud and takes her ideas to the whiteboards at hack-a-thons sponsored by Major League Hacking (MLH). In her free time, she nerds out on arcade games and dabbles in physics and linguistics. Catch her working on community service projects around Manhattan!
Daniel Doubrovkine (aka dB.) is a seasoned entrepreneur, technologist, CTO in New York, the largest online fine art marketplace and publication. Daniel graduated from University of Geneva in late 90s with a degree in Computer Science. Daniel is the creator and maintainer of many popularopen-source projects and alifetime artist.
Dawn Collins is a Senior Librarian specializing in teen services for the New York Public Library. She received her undergraduate degree in theater from Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina and her Masters Degree in Library Science from Southern Connecticut State University. Her passion is working with teens especially on STEAM programming. Shes a life long nerd and a major Doctor Who fan. On any given day you can find her hanging out with her wife and three dogs (and one cat who pretends to like them on occasion). You can find her on IG and Twitter @tattedlibrarian.
This project is about developing a technology-focused solution to a challenge faced by a small business partner. We had the option to select our business partner (Sugar Hill Creamery) based on our interests and used Design Thinking to learn about them and create prototypes. We conducted interviews and received feedback about the work that we had done. In addition to an interactive poster and business card, we created a prototype app which allows you to order your ice cream ahead. Augmented Reality and 360 video is used multiple times to communicate and present our project.
Greg is an assistant professor of fashion design as well as associate director of first year education at Parson School of Design. He splits his time between the BFA in Fashion Design and the MFA in Design + Technology. Greg Climers work is interested in the union between seemingly disparate parts of our everyday lives. Textiles and technology are often assumed to only merge in very sci-fi, high concept ways. Climer is interested in how they can converge while maintaining the warmth and comfort we often associate with well-worn garments and beloved blankets. His work merges traditional textile crafts with technology. His work has shown in the Mint Museum of Art, Christopher Stout Gallery NY, Hive Gallery Los Angeles, The Visual Studies Workshop Gallery, and others. As Artist in Residence at the Museum of Arts and Design, he quilted an animated film. In 2015, Hyper Allergic Magazine listed him as an artist to watch when he debuted the knitted film at Fred Frelinghuysen Presents.
Dr. Millner has established local and international hubs for learning, making, and digital fabrication, shaping the ways in which networks such as Computer Clubhouses and Fab Labs have evolved. His international recognition includes a designation as a Fulbright Specialist/Grantee. Millner, a champion in the Maker Movement, has authored computing curricula for K-12 classrooms.
Dave Monteagudo works at Playcrafting NYC. Bio Coming Soon!
Dr. Amon Millner is an Assistant Professor of Computing and Innovation directing theExtending Access to STEM Empowerment (EASE) Lab. His research and teaching is informed by his work in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) domain, drawing heavily from his specialization: developing tangible interactive systems for making and learning. He develops technology and community platforms to facilitate learners becoming empowered to make and make a difference in their neighborhoods.
Ashley is Director of Engineering at Datadog where she runs the web platform and dashboard/data viz teams. Before that she focused on building fast, scalable data infrastructure at BuzzFeed. Ashley has help build (and rebuild) core systems at many startups in NYC. Prior to working as a software engineer she worked in policy and politics and continues to follow campaigns the way other people follow basketball.
Rob Cancielo is the co-founder, producer, and designer behind Stuido Studios, a small independent game and VR studio in Brooklyn, NY. He also teaches an 8 week Unity game development course for Playcrafting NYC
Andy Parsons is passionate about building technologies to empower creative professionals. He is a veteran engineering leader having built teams and software platforms in music, photography, publishing, education and commercial design. Previously he co-founded Happify, a top-10 mobile wellness app and led educational technology initiatives at McKinsey. He has started and exited several startups and most recently founded Workframe with Kevin Ryan (Gilt, MongoDB, Business Insider). Andy and the Workframe team run Clojure NYC, a vibrant New York programming community. He is also an active mentor for several startup communities including 500 Startups and a frequent speaker on programming, software architecture and engineering team-building.
Competing projects are reviewed by judges and peers. Winners could earn one or more of the following digital badges:
Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Ph.D., is an award winning researcher, artist, and writer. He is an Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Networked Culture at Lehman College / CUNY in the Bronx. He received his Ph.D. in the Disruptive Design Team of the Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department of Trinity College Dublin. His work and thesis entitled Deconstructing Networks includes hundreds of creative projects that critically challenge and subvert accepted perceptions of network interaction and experience. His work has been exhibited and showcased at venues such as SFMOMA, Canadian Museum of Contemporary Art, MOMA, ICA London, Whitney Museum of American Art (Artport), Palais du Tokyo, Tate Modern, Ars Electronica, Transmediale, and more. His project, Bumplist, is included in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. His writing has appeared in publications such as WIRED, Make, Gizmodo, Neural and more. His Scrapyard Challenge workshops have been held in over 15 countries in Europe, South America, North America, Asia, and Australia since 2003.
from programs throughout the five boroughs compete in the premier
Digi-Mitts is a mitten that is inspired by those who love to do digital art but have limited hand dexterity. This mitten helps users paint digitally without the use of a digital pen.
Amy Ashida is an Interaction Designer at the School of Visual Arts. Bio Coming Soon.
****Update:Registration is officially closed! See you on Saturday the 16th!! Contact emoticon. if you have any questions about your registration. ****
Nafiza Akter is an Educational Technology Specialist working in the Provosts Office at Teachers College, Columbia University. Nafiza partners closely with faculty to design or redesign programming for online learners. Prior to joining Columbia, she served as an Instructional Designer at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Nafiza also worked for Adelphi Universitys Faculty Center for Professional Excellence and Global Kids Digital Media Initiatives. She holds a Masters in Educational Technology from Adelphi, with a background in psychology.Read more about Nafiza on the Huffington Post.
A tech for good enthusiast at heart, Mia Therese Jamili currently serves in the Project Management group of the NYC Mayors Office of Operations where she gets to tackle data and tech innovation projects and help monitor the progress of various interagency initiatives promoting equity across the City. Previously, she consulted for the United Nations and worked at the United States Fund for UNICEF, Accenture, and Salesforce. Her achievements include being designated Accenture Nonprofit Innovation Champion and a Global Campaign for Education Youth Advocate in Washington D.C. and the United Nations HQ. She is Master of Science in Technology Management candidate at Columbia University and holds a Bachelor of Arts with Certificate in Human-Centered Design from the University of California, Berkeley. She additionally conducted postgraduate studies in Strategic Communication, Marketing, and Media Management at New York University and in International Economics at the University of Oxford. She never turns down a great Broadway musical or a trip to the outdoors. Catch her on Twitter @miajamili.