​As Product and UX Designers, collaborating with our cross-functional buddies (engineering, product, and research) is essential to build better products. In this interactive fireside chat with Calvin, Jarell, Mike, and host Eric, you'll hear about their experiences and best practices of collaboration in the workplace.

​🐰 About our speakers

​Calvin Zhang is a designer at HMBradley, where he works on building an egalitarian financial platform for consumers. As the first designer at a startup, he's a very seasoned generalist, with a preference towards visual and motion design. The way he collaborates always evolves to fit the needs of the company, through the various stages of exciting growth and "figuring it out". In his free time, he enjoys nerding out over coffee things, and playing competitive online games that he's too old for.

​Connect with Calvin: Instagram, Design Instagram, LinkedIn

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​Jarell Alvarez is an intermediate product designer currently working on enterprise software for Copperleaf who helps utility companies make better decisions that make a better world. On the side he volunteers at Pathrise, ADPList and BCIT as a mentor, regularly hosts or speaks at local meetups and events, and started a local design community in Vancouver on April 2020 with over 900 members for casual bi-weekly calls and writes for Medium as part of their Partnership Program.

​Whether it's reading adult fantasy novels, taking photos through a new perspective, feeling creative to kick food cravings, planning out community events and hangouts or researching the best board game to present to my group next, he crafts a unique life for someone who wants to give back to people and wants to help others everyday.

​He's a huge advocate for compassionate storytelling and any medium that will exemplify that.

​Connect with Jarell: Instagram, LinkedIn, Vancouver Design Check-In Community

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​Mike Priebe is the UI/UX Designer at ehsAI, an award winning women led Vancouver startup helping environmental, health and safety professionals achieve compliance using artificial intelligence. Discovering innovative ways to solve problems drives his creative passion. Mike believes collaboration builds better results as we have so much to share with and to teach each other. When Mike is not designing you can find him being a Dad to two lovely girls, hiking mountains, creating board games, and playing music.

​Connect with Mike: LinkedIn

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​Host: Eric Joseph Lee is UX Designer working on the mobile platform at Central 1. Before this, he was involved with multiple start-ups as a Product and UX Designer. Eric volunteers at Design Buddies as an events coordinator and product researcher. He hosts design events and teaches UX/UI Design to young designers on Emerge GX platform.

​Connect with Eric: LinkedIn

​🐰 About Design Buddies

​​​​​​​​​​​Design Buddies is an inclusive design community aimed to connect and empower designers by providing free resources, events, mentorship, and more.

​​​​​​​​​​​👋 Visit our website, hop into our community, and subscribe to our newsletter!

​​​​​​​​​​​🌟 Watch our past events, read our blog, support us, and connect with us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn for more fun!

​​​​​​​🎨Join us in style with our custom zoom backgrounds you may choose from, too!

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​💡About Emerge GX

​Emerge GX helps Gen Z students learn job-ready skills through meaningful feedback, engaging workshops, and hands-on portfolio projects, so you can better prepare for the workforce.

​Connect with Emerge GX: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mailing List, Discord, Website