frog design has been selected by the World Economic Forum to join its Community of Global Growth Companies (GGC), a group of more than 200 rapidly growing multinational companies that are reshaping the global economic landscape. The GGC was created in late 2007 to recognize and support the next generation of industry leaders as they navigate new geographies, markets, cultures, and regulatory systems to become a global force in social and economic development.
At the TEDGlobal 2009 conference, frog debuted as an official partner of TED, producing the conference program guide as well as a special TEDGlobal edition of its award-winning design mind magazine. TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. In 1984, it started as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, and the annual TED Prize.
frog design serves as the lead design and innovation partner of PopTech, a social innovation network and thought leadership forum. Together with international medical experts and aid workers, we are exploring new ways of leveraging mobile technologies to close the gaps in knowledge and human resources that have crippled efforts to address the HIV/AIDS and TB epidemics in Africa.
frog is a member of the Continua Health Alliance, an open-industry coalition dedicated to harnessing the power of diverse technology to improve the quality of personal healthcare. frog is the first design and innovation firm to join the prestigious Alliance, whose members include Baxter, Cisco, GE, IBM, Intel, Kaiser Permanente, Medtronic, and Roche.
frog is a sponsor of Design Ignites Change, a program that encourages talented high school and college students to use the power of design to address social issues in their local communities through substantive public projects. Students are encouraged to develop projects that will stimulate thought, dialogue, action and ultimately change. A major component of the initiative is a mentoring program through which college and university students, educators and creative professionals, work with underserved high school students to develop projects that will benefit their own communities.
In 2007, the green issue of frog's design mind publication introduced a call-to-arms for the creative community, a "Kyoto Treaty of Design" that sought to unite consultancies around issues of sustainability. This effort has since expanded outwards, taking new form as the Designers Accord, an industry-wide coalition of design and innovation firms that promote positive environmental and social impact through their work. frog is an active supporter of this initiative.
frog is a corporate member of the Design Management Institute and a frequent co-host of its executive seminars around issues of business and design. We participate in DMI conferences worldwide and share our insights in regular contributions to the DMI Review.
frog partners with top-ranked international business schools IESE and CEIBS to enhance the role of design and innovation in business education, helping executives learn to develop profit-driven, disruptive ideas through a balance of user research, strategy, design, and technology. frog hosts innovation courses and workshops as part of IESE's executive education program in Barcelona, the MBA program of CEIBS in Shanghai, and the IESE Global Executive MBA program, which spans multiple locations, including Barcelona, Madrid, Shanghai, and Silicon Valley, California.
The Norman Lear Center is a multidisciplinary research and public policy center that explores the convergence of media and society. Together, frog and the Lear Center co-sponsor events, research initiatives, and programming in the online and offline space, exploring the intersection of culture, commerce, and entertainment. Together, we also co-own the Center of Attention island in Second Life, featuring digital exhibitions about attraction and distraction.
frog helps bring design and innovation into the MBA curriculum at NYU Stern via a yearly design and innovation course and executive education series. The frog-Stern partnership helps current and future executives develop new ways of thinking that complement those typically used in business strategy.
frog is a longtime sponsor of the South by Southwest Interactive festival, the host of its annual opening party, and a regular participant in its panel discussions and presentations. In 2008, we also designed and developed the official SXSW interactive online community hub, offering users direct access to event videos, images, and news.
frog design serves as a partner for JUCCCE (Joint US-China Cooperation on Clean Energy), a non-profit organization that aims to accelerate the greening of China to combat the effects of climate change around the world. frog design contributes in-kind services as a design advisor to its Shanghai Lighting program. The Shanghai Lightning program involves the replacement of 10 million conventional incandescent light bulbs with energy efficient compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs in Shanghai. It is frog design’s and JUCCCE’s hope that the success of this larger CFL lighting program can be adopted and replicated in cities across the country.
frog design and Greennovate joined forces in an open initiative called MaGiC, Made GREEN in China. The initiative was launched in Sept 2009 with a mission to inspire China’s youth to develop a China that is green and healthy for themselves and future generations. Greennovate is a social enterprise, established in 2007, that develops ideas for a sustainable future in China. It focuses on raising environmental awareness and solutions for sustainable development for businesses and communities.
As a supporter of GIGA (Green Ideas, Green Actions), frog design develops resources and collaborates with them on events and projects to create environmentally positive design. GIGA is a China-based, non-profit research foundation working to provide Chinese designers with actionable design solutions to create and support market competition for greener materials. Their mission is to reset their standards for the built environment to having a positive impact on ecology, society, and economy.
frog design is a partner of Palomar 5, a non-profit initiative based in Germany to foster innovation outside of corporate structures. Palomar 5 has created a residency program — a six week innovation Camp in Berlin and San Francisco — to gather visionary young people for around the world to inspire and discover new spaces for innovation and create new formats for cooperate with the goal of making real change.
