bunā, shé:kon
hello, bonjour
A bit about me
Hi! My name is Diana Mihaela Baranga-Mazhar.
With over a decade of experience as an interdisciplinary designer, facilitator, and social entrepreneur, I have dedicated my career to building systems, experiences, and services that are equitable, impactful, and sustainable.
My experience includes launching and scaling a pan-Canadian education nonprofit serving 5K+ equity-deserving youth; co-designing social impact programs and curricula for rural and urban schools; leading strategic design and foresight workshops for global nonprofits, B-corps and government; developing online courses for AI product teams; and crafting delightful customer experiences for technology startups and scale-ups in education, healthcare, and transportation.
Alongside my participatory design work in the social impact and innovation space, I also share insights and learnings as a writer, educator, and speaker.
Positionality
As a white-presenting, neurotypical woman who serves people with different lived experiences and who leverages multiple design disciplines to achieve positive social outcomes, I acknowledge that design is not neutral. From understanding a problem to designing a solution, designers embed their lived experiences and biases into their work daily. When used unwisely at best—and maliciously at worst—design work can oppose social justice outcomes, especially when power and privilege are not openly addressed. This is why sharing my positionality and identity is important to me—it ensures transparency and fosters a deeper understanding of the perspectives I bring to my work. It also demonstrated my commitment to engaging in reflexivity on all the projects that I work on.
I was born and raised in a small town in Romania, growing up on land that my ancestors called home for many generations. My sense of identity and belonging—from Romanian to global nomad—shifted as I spent my teenage years learning and living in multicultural contexts across Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, and Switzerland. As a young adult, I moved to Canada to pursue my B.A. in History and Political Science at McGill University. After spending a year in the United States earning my Master's in Learning Design, Innovation, and Technology from Harvard University, I returned to Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) in 2022. I currently live on the traditional unceded territories of the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) as a daughter, mother, life-long-learner and settler-immigrant.
Through my work to date, I have had the honor and privilege to learn from and engage with many Indigenous communities across Turtle Island, including the Kwanlin Dün First Nation, Tagish First Nation, Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, and the Hupacasath and Tseshaht First Nations. These experiences have instilled in me a deep commitment to challenging frameworks and approaches that only celebrate Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) perspectives and knowledge. They have also given me the opportunity to continue practicing reflexivity so I might act as an ally of Indigenous peoples, championing their voices, rights and hopes - both for the present and the future.
.png)
