With their ability to innovate and use design thinking to enact positive impact across various scales, designers are uniquely positioned to bring a refreshing perspective to policymaking. In an exciting move for the ID community, RKS Design Founder and CEO Ravi Sawhney has accepted an invitation to join TechNet, a national, bi-partisan advocacy group of CEOs from 70 US-based tech companies. The list of corporations involved include big players like Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Cisco, eBay, HP, Intuit, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, PayPal and Visa. 

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Sawhney comes to the group with experiences that include involvement in over 40 start-ups as well as pioneering a psycho-aesthetics design thinking methodology. His most recent project, LoanGifting, was launched earlier this year as a platform to unite those with student loan debt with their extended communities of friends, family, affiliations, and employers to help them tackle the burden of their loans and become debt-free. 

At TechNet Day 2016—which took place on April 27, 2016— Sawhney and his fellow members met with White House and congressional leaders, including Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan. Among the topics discussed was how to make the United States more globally competitive by encouraging economic growth, creating jobs and preparing students for the modern workforce. They also addressed the rising demand for UX designers and the huge impact they will quickly have on the job market as the technology industry sees unprecedented growth rates. 

"Are we going to be a country that leads in innovation?" asked TechNet founder and ex-CEO of Cisco, John Chambers. "We're falling behind, the longer we wait on the decisions we just talked about the further behind we fall. And it does require the courage to make fundamental changes with business and government working together. You look at the future of our country—92% of the jobs created over the next decade will have technology skills involved."

Having a designer on board is an important and relevant addition, which will foster new insights and approaches to tackling some of our most pressing issues. "The lessons learned over the past 40 years in design, all come to bear now as we transform the domestic and global economy through what many predict is the next Industrial Revolution—the one of Technology and Connectivity," as Sawhney says.