Prof. Dr. Yongqi LOU is a Vice President and Dean of the College of Design and Innovation at Tongji University in Shanghai, the Board Director of World Design Organization (WDO) and the Vice President of China Industrial Design Association. Lou has been the pioneer in China for design-driven innovation education, research and practices that connect design, business, and technology. He is the founder of Design Harvests, a design-driven urban-rural interaction project; Tongji-Huangpu School of Design and Innovation, the first design thinking K12 school in China; and She Ji — the Journal of Design, Innovation, and Economics published by Tongji and Elsevier. He is the Editorial Board Member of the journal Design Issues published by The MIT Press.

Lou was elected as a fellow of Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) in 2019.