Paul Gould, a senior designer at research and consulting firm MAYA, wants to make the Kids & Creativity Network less like an asteroid belt, and more like the moon.

“Maybe [they] have the same mass in total, but the asteroid belt is spread out and the moon is consolidated, and has some gravity,” he says. “The goal is to take this diverse group of organizations and, without cramping anybody’s style, build some gravity into it,” to help attract funding, entice new members, and amplify what the network is able to achieve.

To do so, Gould and others at MAYA have worked to facilitate annual sessions in which Network organizations explore new ways of working cooperatively and collaboratively. Gould has continued to work separately with some of those same participating organizations as a strategic advisor and design consultant, helping them to further define, develop, and shape new products and programs that focus on kids as creators and innovators.

Gould is also a lead instructor at LUMA Institute, where he teaches human-centered design, a process that seeks to make products easier to use by first understanding complex human needs and motivations. Gould contributed to Exposing the Magic of Design: A Practitioner’s Guide to the Methods and Theory of Synthesis (Oxford University Press, 2010).