Paola Antonelli, born in Sassari, Sardinia and brought up in Milan, studied architecture at Milano Politecnico as Aulenti did. She then wrote about architecture and design and taught at UCLA in Los Angeles before joining MoMA in 1994, where today is the Museum’s Senior Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design, as well as MoMA’s founding Director of Research and Development. Her exhibitions there and elsewhere, like the groundbreaking Broken Nature. Design Takes on Human Survival, shown at Triennale Milano, have had a profound impact on people's understanding of design the world over.

Alice Rawsthorn—born in Manchester and based in London—is an award-winning design critic and author of books on design, including Hello World: Where Design Meets Life, Design as an Attitude and, most recently, Design Emergency: Building a Better Future. She is a co-founder with Paola Antonelli of the Design Emergency project to investigate design's role as a force for positive change. In all her work, Alice champions design's potential to address complex social, political and ecological challenges.