Julie Blitzer - Ux Manager @Design Group Italia
IxDA passionate since 2009
Julie Blitzer is the Digital User Experience Manager for Design Group Italia, a studio with nearly 50 years of leadership in design, branding and innovation for clients around the world. She earned a Master in Interaction Design at Domus Academy in Milan and a B.A. in Government from Claremont McKenna College. While this path is her formal academic training, her “real” learning has happened (and continues to happen) at IxDA, as she has been attending their events since early 2009 in NYC, followed by workshops at interaction10 Savannah, 2nd place in the Student Design Challenge (SDC) at interaction14 Amsterdam. She is now helping to revive IxDA Milan & Turin, where she has lived since 2013, giving back to an organization that has given her so much.
Julie has worked on projects with B2B, enterprise and consumer, including for startups, e-commerce, consumer electronics, fashion, banking, education, non-profit, and governments. She loves the challenge of working on any kind of interface: apps, websites, interactive installations, and even home appliances. Her recent projects have been focused on Industrial IoT, wearable devices and Fintech. She teaches and mentors for Thinkful, General Assembly, Startup Weekend, Girls Who Code, and more.
Julie has spoken at numerous conferences and events including SXSW Interactive, World Usability Congress, DroidCon & Netroots Nation. Julie also is a Lecturer at both Domus Academy and Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti locally in Milan and recently taught a month-long service design workshop at Scuola Politecnica di Design (SPD).
Andrea Pedrina - Head of UX/UI @Havas
IxDA Milan & Turin - Local Leader
Andrea Pedrina is a multi-disciplinary designer with 8+ years of working experience mostly focused on crafting wonderful user-centered experiences.
He took his first degree in Disciplines of Art, Music and Cinema with a Major in Computer Science and Multimedia Systems. He was an Interaction Design researcher for the International Research Centre Casa Paganini – InfoMus. He also owns a Master of Art degree in Communication Design, where he focused on the experience design field together with data visualization.
In the last years he won some of the most important awards in the creativity and design scene. Two awards in the One Show Young Ones international creativity contest based in New York, the Silver Pencil Award and the Merit Award; two "The FWA" awards, and many others including Awwwards, CSSDesignAwards and Digital Design Award (site of the month).
He's the Milan & Turin Local Leader for the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) and he has been granted the opportunity to join the official FWA and Digital Design Awards judging panels, working closely with a team of digital professionals to judge the best projects in the world.
He teaches for Domus Academy and NABA (New Academy of Fine Arts - Milan) in Interaction Design, Service Design, Brand Design and Communication Designt courses.
Being always active as freelance, he has also worked as Interaction Designer for the Carlo Ratti Associati studio in Turin, founded by the director of the MIT Senseable City Lab, and the Makr Shakr startup under the Boston MIT wing.
He has recently joined Havas as Head of UX/UI, guiding the development of a tailor-made design process, leading all the experience design aspects and developing digital and physical experiences.