PROFESSOR STATEMENT Industrial design is going through a significant change.   The democratization of design, shared authority, and desktop 3D printing is changing the role of the designer from the maker of products to problem solver.  For the new generation of industrial designers their ability to critically analyze users and context, will be their most important skills. As artificial intelligence and automation become more prevalent the human body will take on a role as “sensing unit”.  Industrial designers will be tasked with deciding how the users will interact with the experiential process with surroundings. Future scenarios of human to human communication and human to computer communication (HCI).    Future industrial designers will be as likely to work on a societal issue as creating experiential environments.