Social Innovation Catalyst, OpenQRS
"Choose your corner, pick away at it carefully, intensely and to the
best of your ability and that way you might change the world."
- Charles Eames
Social Innovation Catalyst
Kate Michi Ettinger
Director
Strategic Research & Design
Strategic Research & Design
Kate Michi Ettinger
Strategic advisor, social entrepreneur, health care interaction designer and ethics consultant with over fifteen years of health-related experience in private, government, academic, non-profit sectors. Driven to learn and passionate about fostering success in endeavors that promote public health and human dignity.
• Effective communicator with diverse audiences and adept in multi-cultural environments.
• Creative, results-oriented problem solver committed to inclusive innovation and excellence.
• Collaborative team player with the initiative to work well independently.
Whether faced with regulatory ambiguity, uncertain futures or clinical dilemmas, Kate works with executives, philanthropists/impact investors and clinicians to determine effective action amidst high stakes uncertainty. Skillful at partnering with diverse stakeholders, Kate provides strategic insight and creative leadership to navigate systems level challenges. Kate flourishes with teams who embrace the opportunity to create interactions that people love.
A RSA Fellow, Kate's passion project began in 2010 at the intersection of her work in bioethics and product design when she encountered the question: who makes sure that medical devices designed for low income countries are safe?
Kate, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), has a law degree from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law with certificates in Alternative Dispute Resolution and Bioethics. Kate graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a BA in Humanistic Area Studies. Kate serves as a mediator for the Office of Citizen Complaints, San Francisco Police Department and has served as a community member on the ethics committee at San Francisco General Hospital and California Pacific Medical Center.
• Effective communicator with diverse audiences and adept in multi-cultural environments.
• Creative, results-oriented problem solver committed to inclusive innovation and excellence.
• Collaborative team player with the initiative to work well independently.
Whether faced with regulatory ambiguity, uncertain futures or clinical dilemmas, Kate works with executives, philanthropists/impact investors and clinicians to determine effective action amidst high stakes uncertainty. Skillful at partnering with diverse stakeholders, Kate provides strategic insight and creative leadership to navigate systems level challenges. Kate flourishes with teams who embrace the opportunity to create interactions that people love.
A RSA Fellow, Kate's passion project began in 2010 at the intersection of her work in bioethics and product design when she encountered the question: who makes sure that medical devices designed for low income countries are safe?
- In 2012, Kate launched an user-centered design study of the global regulatory system for medical devices designed for low income countries by interviewing device makers, social entrepreneurs, health care workers, patients and funders. These findings were presented at 2014 UNESCO Technology for Development conference. (Slideshare)
- In 2013, Kate shared a vision for "Integrity by Design" at TEDxBarcelonaChange: Positive Disruption in Global Health. (TEDx: Integrity by Design)
- In 2014, Kate piloted a method to apply relation-centered design and to proactively addressed quality, reliability and safety for multiple technologies, including mobile health, medical diagnostics, 3D Printed medical devices, open hardware and medtech supply chain technology.
- In 2015, a proposal for an open source approach to assure quality, reliability and safety (OpenQRS) in medical devices was published in the UNESCO Chair’s book: “Technologies for Development: What is Essential?”
- In 2016, the Journal of Medical Engineering and Technology published the results of an OpenQRS pilot, "Building quality mhealth for low resource settings", that applied relation-centered design and proactively addressed quality, reliability and safety for a mobile health medical device. (Paper)
Kate, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), has a law degree from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law with certificates in Alternative Dispute Resolution and Bioethics. Kate graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a BA in Humanistic Area Studies. Kate serves as a mediator for the Office of Citizen Complaints, San Francisco Police Department and has served as a community member on the ethics committee at San Francisco General Hospital and California Pacific Medical Center.
design Approach
Inspired by the grace and ingenuity of Japanese joinery, Kate is passionate about designing for aichaku-- a Japanese concept that translates roughly as "a love fit". Kate flourishes working with teams that embrace the opportunity to craft experiences that people love when designing interactions with products, services and systems.
Kate draws on human-centered design, bioethics and conflict resolution expertise to create solutions for complex challenges. Bringing sensitivity and creativity to high stakes issues, Kate is comfortable with uncertainty and thorny human problems. Kate works skillfully with diverse stakeholders to surface interests and to align competing agendas into concerted action.
Kate draws on human-centered design, bioethics and conflict resolution expertise to create solutions for complex challenges. Bringing sensitivity and creativity to high stakes issues, Kate is comfortable with uncertainty and thorny human problems. Kate works skillfully with diverse stakeholders to surface interests and to align competing agendas into concerted action.
Design Skills portfolio
Graphic Design: Diana To
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Expertise
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Experienced
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Why Do you do what you do?
"A heart once touched by love is incapable of cowardice."
- Cesare
- Cesare
Why Mural?
Just after college, Kate immersed herself in the world of non-profits, worked in botanical gardens, and certified to teach English as a second language. Then she embarked on an outdoor leadership and emergency medicine course- at which point her father said with honest exasperation: "What are you doing? From this thing to that, none of it ties together!?"
Kate replied earnestly: "You're right, Dad, the things that I do don't seem related right now, but, trust me, they are. It's like painting a mural. In the early stages- the canvas is blank with colors scattered- a splotch of green here, some yellow there, a splash of red. It doesn't look like much of anything, but when it's done, we will look back and see how every color was necessary to make the mural that will be my life."
Kate replied earnestly: "You're right, Dad, the things that I do don't seem related right now, but, trust me, they are. It's like painting a mural. In the early stages- the canvas is blank with colors scattered- a splotch of green here, some yellow there, a splash of red. It doesn't look like much of anything, but when it's done, we will look back and see how every color was necessary to make the mural that will be my life."