My name is Micha Lionarons, originally from Amsterdam, which is where I now live after years abroad in Brazil, Ireland, England, Kenya and Tanzania. In the last two countries I’ve had the chance to live with a Maasai family for a while, to teach at the local school. When living there, I noticed how the lack of energy, and mostly lighting in the evening, restricted the children from being able to do their homework at home. Therefore I came back with 8 friends that I managed to convince to do something about this. Together with local partners we set up Solar Energy projects to help 8 local villages and their inhabitants get access to night lights, to among other things, help the children study after the sun sets.

By training I’m a medical design engineer. Helping to develop devices to help people take control of their health, and prevent illness.


When you design products or services for a completely different user from yourself. The best practice is to design together with the actual patients or end users. When they do not have the skills to express their needs and wishes. It’s a designer’s job to walk them through a process to co-design solutions that best fit their needs. I'd love to give everyone who joins my session the skills to host a workshop where you can learn to co-design a better value proposition, together with, and for, its end user.


Today, I work at Google as a teacher at the Cloud University. Which means that I educate all of our new employees in Europe, Middle East and Africa, on how they can transform their customers’ business using Google technology and innovation. On top of that, I get most excited by working with non-profits on their challenges, and how to overcome these through design.