Exploring Global Challenges and Solutions for Local Communities
Onda is a collective of designers, researchers, and cultural translators.
We are dedicated to understanding the perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes of people around the world to use as inspiration to design more effective solutions. Our passion lies in exploring how key global challenges affect communities and the ecosystems that support them.
Our Collective Model
Onda builds teams specifically for each project, collaborating with “boots-on-the-ground” partners and multidisciplinary experts to develop the most productive approaches and sustainable solutions for each market. We work alongside clients to produce positive social impact in support of a variety of sectors including financial services, technology, food systems, consumer packaged goods, and healthcare.
Our Iterative Process
In Spanish and Portuguese, the literal meaning of “onda” is wave or undulation. We use the wave-like, iterative process of human-centered research and design. This process starts with ensuring we are on the same wavelength as our research participants by seeking to truly understand what life is like in their shoes. We use remote and in-person methodologies to explore the essence of local mindsets and ways of life, creating impactful solutions through ongoing prototyping and evaluation.
Our Services
Landscape
Research to Set
the Stage.
Strategic framing workshops for aligning the team
Desk research and literature reviews for synthesizing what’s already known
Expert and stakeholder interviews to fill in the missing pieces
Primary
Research to
Gather Insights.
Mobile diary studies for tracking activities over the course of several days
Remote or in-person interviews, dyads, triads, and mini groups for diving deep into our subject matter
Observations for seeing actual behaviors first hand
Cultural immersions for exploring ecosystems
Evaluation of concepts and prototypes to inform strategy and requirements
Strategic
Innovation +
Design to Make
Advancements.
Co-creation workshops for engaging users and/or stakeholders
Ideation workshops to inform the design of concepts and prototypes to evaluate in primary research
Iterative product and service development to keep evolving
Innovation for
Development Efforts
For our non-profit clients, we implement holistic approaches to the world’s interconnected challenges, all with the ultimate goal of supporting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. We believe in providing communities with a platform to tackle issues organically, inspiring ripples of change that can be dynamically scaled to transform the world.
Our Team
Hannah Pick
Founder of Onda Collective, Hannah has over 10 years of experience as a multilingual strategist, researcher, and innovation practitioner. She is passionate about helping organizations better appreciate the needs and motivations of the people they serve, and to build bridges between research insights, strategy, and action. Her expertise lies in cultural translation — understanding the context of individuals and communities to effectively communicate and adapt new messages and solutions into their respective languages. Hannah has served as Director of Research for the International Product Innovation team at McGraw-Hill Education. As a consultant, Hannah has facilitated projects in the U.S., Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe for clients including Allstate, BBVA/Bancomer, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, Mars, and the World Cocoa Foundation. She is based in Chicago.
Natalia Silva
Natalia holds a double degree in Fine Arts and Industrial Design from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá (Colombia) and UNAM in CDMX (México). Since 2007, she has been immersed in the development of initiatives that involve the design of future scenarios for clients across various industries, with a focus on finance, healthcare, and retail. Her experience lies in applying design thinking to address complex business challenges through the design of new products, services, strategy and business models. Natalia is passionate about leveraging new ideas and practices that make design and innovation more relevant and positively impact the environment for people and companies.
Fei Gao
Fei has over 15 years of experience as a designer and strategist across many industries including automotive, consumer goods, public health, and healthcare. He has conducted design research projects in the U.S., China, Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia. He has helped organizations big and small to understand people and innovate using human-centered design as a process and collection of methods. Fei is experienced in designing and facilitating large scale in-person and virtual co-design sessions to help stakeholder groups connect and innovate together. Organizations he has worked with include SC Johnson Base of Pyramid group, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, CommonSpirit Health, Walgreens, Salesforce Health Cloud, and Esperanza Health Centers.
Annette Bellezzo
Annette is a master communicator and coordinator, often found marrying the two skills to curate efficient systems and processes. Whether it’s leading landscape research and synthesting industry trends into digestible content or helping people find tranquility and joy in their living spaces via her personal organizing business, Annette uses her knack for transforming challenges into sustainable solutions. Annette has over 15 years of experience in marketing in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors and has served as the Community Manager at an advertising agency for several consumer packaged goods, such as Ortega Tacos, Enjoy Life Foods, McCormick Spices, and Fisher Nuts. Annette resides in Chicago and can often be found at the Montrose Bird Sanctuary.
Kelly Coney
Kelly has 10 years of experience as a strategic researcher and facilitator. Her work is grounded in her experience with the social sciences, particularly social psychology and cognitive neuroscience. She has merged this experience with the tenets of design thinking to complete research projects across industries, including technology, consumer goods, and healthcare. She has experience leading complex, global projects and facilitating co-design and ideation sessions across countries including the US, Mexico, Brazil, England, China, Canada, France, India, and Thailand. Kelly holds a master's degree from the University of Chicago and is currently an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, teaching classes on applied design thinking and communication.
Juan Fankhauser
Juan is an active observer and designer with a degree in Industrial Design from the Pontifical Javeriana University. Juan has worked as a design consultant at Haptica in Colombia where he collaborated extensively with Onda Collective on a financial inclusion project in Colombia and Kenya. He volunteered at Techo, a non-profit addressing poverty in Latin America for 5 years. He is passionate about uncovering different contexts, relationships, opportunities for intervention and learning as well as community design and co-design, social processes that respond to users’ situations, desires and expectations. He currently supports Onda with communications and event planning.