Interview with
a Change-MakerChange-Maker
Interview
In 2024, I sat down with Kevin Drinkwater, President of J5 Design & Calgary's Social Impact Lab, to talk about a project that inspired me: a women's clinic dedicated to menopause and aging. The conversation that followed went beyond the questions I initially prepared.2024 traf ich Kevin Drinkwater, Präsident von J5 Design und dem Social Impact Lab in Calgary, um über ein Projekt zu sprechen, das mich inspiriert hat: eine Frauenklinik für Wechseljahre und das Altern. Das Gespräch, das folgte, ging weit über meine vorbereiteten Fragen hinaus.
The Purpose
I went into this interview wanting to understand how designers approach social change and what service design actually looks like in practice. Kevin had built a career at that intersection, and he walked me through an upcoming project and the thinking guiding the decision-making behind it.
The Conversation
We discussed a developing project regarding a purpose-built clinic dedicated entirely to menopause and women's aging: a gap that affects half the population, with limited healthcare infrastructure designed around it. We talked through who was involved, what it would take to build it, the partnership with the Calgary Health Foundation, and what it means to design this type of space. Kevin's thinking followed Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle model, moving from the inside out: purpose first, then process, then result.
Closing the gap in women's health so no one is underserved through a natural stage of life.
Human-centred design grounded in curiosity and empathy, built in partnership with specialized care teams, Calgary Health Foundation, and women.
A purpose-built centre of excellence dedicated to menopause and women's aging. Serving women in marginalized communities and families in Calgary.
My ‘Aha’ Moment
What I didn’t know
I'd only recently learned this type of work existed — first in university, then more concretely while preparing for my conversation with Kevin: that design could be pointed at our biggest social problems, with empathy as the foundation of the process rather than a soft skill at the end. I'd always wanted to solve problems with care and kindness at the core. I just never knew there were careers built around exactly that.
What I knew by the end
Then I sat down across from someone who had. Our conversation answered a question I hadn't realized I'd walked in with. I'd always led with empathy. In how I read people, how I work through problems, how I show up for the work — but I'd never seen it reflected back as something with professional purpose. Kevin's work made it visible. The instincts I'd been already building like curiosity, empathy, a real pull toward human connection, were pointing somewhere after all. Design, done with care, can make communities kinder and more beautiful places to live, and I left that room wanting to be part of it.