Identity and Transformation with Julia Fernandez and Jacob Hernandez

Technically Speaking with Harrison Wheeler

Welcome to day 4 of the Technically Speaking Podcast at the San Francisco Design Week. This time our host Harrison Wheeler talks remotely with Julia Fernandez and shares the stage with Jacob Hernandez to talk about the power of transformation. Julia is a Product Design Intern at Facebook and the Co-Creator of Students of UXD; Jacob’s current position is Senior Product Designer at LinkedIn on the Equity Team. Tune into this profound conversation around the power of design and its link to social justice, community building, and overall empowerment.

Jump straight into:

(01:35) - Who are Julia Fernandez and Jacob Hernandez? Working from home, what they miss the most from pre-pandemic life and how they maintain life-work balance.

(12:55) - A student moving into the design world: Julia’s self-taught path into product and UX design and how the pandemic came as a blessing in disguise for her.

(16:43) - Julia’s journey co-creating Students of UXD: How inclusion and social justice are fundamental to this community-building project.

(19:12) - Jacob’s background and his work on the LinkedIn Equity Team: How design can help create more equitable and accessible worlds.

(25:44) - The power of community: Solving problems, recognizing intersectionality, and bringing our identities into design.

(31:35) - Bias and the default culture: What is equity and how it relates to work, companies, and opportunities.

(35:31) - A piece of advice: The journey of being an underrepresented person navigating into the design world.

(40:53) - Julia and Jacob’s perspective on transformation and how companies are changing for the better: “I see transformation as healing”.

Episode Resources:

Connect with Julia through LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok

Connect with Jacob through LinkedIn

Students of UXD

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