Jasmien Herssens (PhD) is a facilitator in Design for All. Both her professional and personal life path embody diversity. Trained as designer, educator, architect, researcher, and entrepreneur, Jasmien holds different lenses to perceive the world and gratefully implements these perspectives in practice. With empathy she embraces the diverse capabilities of users. Jasmien worked as an architect for several years, holds a vast position at Hasselt University and served as sitemanager of Koen Vanmechelen’s living art project LABIOMISTA. In 2022, she launched the startup “fourmind”, a social enterprise that believes nobody is disabled but that an environment can disable.Jasmien became user expert in disabilities herself and these experiences convinced her even more to put inclusion at the heart of her life. Empowering people by means of designing an inclusive environment for all is her driver every day. 
She received the Cera Senior Award for Engineers with a heart for people, Cambridge Best Paper Award, Include013 conference Award, National award for museums in Australia, gold award in Universal Design at IAUD. As vice president of Design for All Europe, she is also representative in EDF (European Disability forum) and engages as board member in different bodies addressing inclusion, diversity and belonging.

Panel 03 | Living spaces