At the Design Foundation HQ the team sit down every Tuesday at 11am to watch a TED talk; we call it ‘TED talk Tuesday’.

It gets us thinking and talking about different things, opens our minds a bit more and gives us a well deserved break from our screens.

This week Georgina picked a talk called ‘Designers – Think Big!’ by Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO – a global innovation and design firm.

And we’re glad she did, because everything Tim had to say in his talk, made us think about the festival and how each one of our speakers has gone beyond aesthetics and done something good using design.

In his talk, Tim explains that the design profession has a bigger role to play than just creating attractive shells for new technology or fashionable little objects.

He calls for a shift to local, collaborative, participatory “design thinking” to solve problems and to create world-changing innovations.

Since Tim’s talk in 2009, big change is happening in health care, education and the environment using the power of design, and at this years Cheltenham Design Festival we want to talk about what else design can change.

We’ll be asking these two really important questions:

• What is the role of a designer?
• What is designs role?

We have 17 incredible speakers joining us to help answer these questions, and you can join us too.

I would also recommend watching Tim’s TED talk if you haven’t already seen it. I know it’s an old one, but it’s still really good.