Ela Ben-Ur

Ela Ben-Ur has worked and co-experimented deeply with organizations and educators interested in design thinking since 2012. The focus of her present experimentation is Innovators' Compass (http://innovatorscompass.org/): 5 questions that move us forward, distilled from many different practices, which have been used from preschools to global conferences and rural communities.

Ela worked 13 prior years at renowned innovation firm IDEO. Her design practice and leadership at IDEO spanned diverse industries, geographies, and sectors. She went on to co-found IDEO’s Leadership Studio for developing project leaders, coach teams, and facilitate for clients.

Ela has taught courses from product design to life design at Olin since 2007. She has offered workshops and keynotes through MIT (her alma mater), Sloan, Babson, Dartmouth, and Harvard, and at venues from SXSW EDU to the National Science Teachers’ Association, New England Association of Schools and Conferences, AIGA, International Development Design Summit, Front End of Innovation, and US Conference on AIDS.

Ela earned BS (1997) and MS (1999) in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. As a research assistant in the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Haptics Group, she developed a force-feedback laparoscopic surgery simulator that has been patented and displayed at the MIT Museum.

Her husband and daughters are her inspiration. She loves outdoor adventures, improvisational music, and creative chaos with them.