With a background in graphic design, urban planning, and architecture, Candy Chang likes to make cities more accessible and engaging through research, design, and the creative use of public space. She recently founded an organization called Civic Center that champions civic engagement through stories, services, products, and public installations.

She is a 2009 TED Global Fellow and has worked in Johannesburg, New Orleans, Vancouver, Nairobi, and New York City on collaborative projects with residents, community organizations, and local government. She was an art director at The New York Times, a fellow at the Spatial Information Design Lab, a researcher at the Infrastructure and Poverty Action Lab, and a project associate for Global Studio. Thanks to synthesizers and nerdy software she performed music in NYC, Detroit, and Grenoble and co-founded a design house/record label called Red Antenna. Her projects have been featured at the Center for Architecture, an airport in Russia, and several seedy basements.