8:00 AM Onwards
Arrival & Registration
May 21, 2026
Institute of Design at Illinois Tech, Chicago
As we gather to begin the day, we step into a deliberate timeline to reflect on the breakthroughs that shaped our industry, confront how AI and design are transforming the present, and explore what comes next.
9:00 AM
Opening Welcome
Setting the time lens and anchoring the conversations that will carry us from reflection into reimagination.
Niketa Jhaveri
Curator, Nivan
Senior Manager, UX Amazon
9:15 AM Onwards
Reflect on the Past
Learning from what shaped us.
What We Got Right. What We Got Wrong. What Still Matters.
A keynote on the lessons from the past that continue to shape modern innovation.
Jim Dantzler
Design Leader, Educator, Former Amazon
Scale vs. Craft
Debating whether expansion strengthens or dilutes meaningful design.
Noel Childs
SVP Group Experience Design Director, Digitas
vs.
David Kazaryan
Senior Product Design Manager, United Airlines
The Tools That Shaped Us
The essential approaches innovators rely on to navigate complexity and create change.
Bob Nesbitt
Former Director of Portfolio Strategy, AbbVie
Former Director of Advanced Development, Eli Lilly and Company
Patterns That Refuse to Disappear
Rapid perspectives on defining decisions that reshaped the field.
Linnea Hagen
Senior Research Manager, Netflix
Identifying Signals in the Noise
An interactive workshop on identifying early signals within complexity and noise.
Tony Bynum
Associate Professor & Director, Institute of Design Executive Academy
12:30 PM Onwards
Realize the Present
Designing and building in today’s reality.
Lightning Talk: The Present
The choices we make with AI today define what comes next across industries.
Gavin Lew
Managing Partner, Bold Insight
Human Judgment vs. AI Assistance
Examining where human intuition and machine intelligence intersect.
Bennett Hornbostel
Principal UX Researcher, Amazon
vs.
Varun Kapoor
Staff Product Designer, Docker
Decisions in Motion
The tension between rapid growth and thoughtful creation.
Suzanne Currie
Director of AI/UX Research, Geico
Decisions at the Speed of Now
Real-time judgment inside accelerating workflows, where digital decisions carry impact.
Casey Hudetz
Senior Product Design Manager, Docusign
When Design Becomes Decision Making
How design leaders influence strategy long before outcomes are visible.
Ashley Craig
VP of Product Design & Research, AnswerLab
2:30 PM Onwards
Reimagine the Future
Shaping what comes next.
Lightning Talk: The Future
Progress is inevitable. Direction is not. What future are we choosing to create?
Matthew Alverson
Partner, IA Collaborative
Personalization vs. Privacy
Creative Duel
Where should we draw the line between meaningful personalization and personal privacy?
Featured Speakers To Be Announced
Designing the AI Continuum
Fast-moving insights weaving trust and innovation into the patient journey.
Kevin Yuda
Senior UX Director, GE Healthcare
The Future Won’t Design Itself
Why North Stars Matter More Than Roadmaps
Ben Shown
Head of Design, Blink UX
4:00 PM
Back to the Future: Where Eras Converge
The systems we inherit shape the systems we build. From legacy data to future-scale decisions, this session connects history, judgment, and direction into one continuous arc.
Nick Allen
Chief Strategy Officer, Healthcare Private Equity (Confidential)
The Time Capsule
A room full of practitioners pauses long enough to ask what feels true right now.
At Nivan, attendees contribute to a shared digital time capsule. Reflections on UX, AI, and design at this exact moment in history.
What do we believe?
What are we building toward?
What questions are we still wrestling with?
Those signals are preserved and later revealed back to the community: a snapshot of our collective thinking before the next shift arrives.
The capsule lives on.
Revisited. Reinterpreted. Remembered.
A Message to the Future
Attendees write a message meant for the future.
A reminder. A warning. A belief worth carrying forward.
Those words are sealed, dated years ahead, and returned after the conference.
A pause in an industry that rarely slows down.
A thread of continuity in a moment defined by acceleration.
Nivan is a space to question the assumptions shaping your future.