Currently working as a design executive consultant with the Bridge Social on international McKinsey projects.
As one of the founding team members, Michael led design and research at Ank, an awesome fintech startup funded by the Itaú Unibanco group operating initially in Argentina and following up with a regional scale. Previous to co-founding Ank he was in charge of UX at OLX Group, leading UX teams in Argentina, India, and the Middle East. Before OLX Michael was the UX evangelist at Despegar.com for all LATAM markets where he found and lead the User Research team for various years. Since 2017 Michael is one of the head mentors at Google for the Startups Accelerator program that helps startups build and scale great products by matching them with the best of Google - its people, network, and advanced technologies.
Also, Google certifies Michael officially as Design Sprint Master and as an Assistant Expert of Google's International Developer Experts Program (GDE).
Michael Dorka has more than 10 years of experience as an entrepreneur of various companies and 20 years of experience as a professional designer and consultant in which he worked more than 15 years as a UX professional and more than 5 years of creating and managing UX teams.
After graduating from the Cologne University of applied sciences with a major in interface design and minors incorporating design and design theory [Excellency] he was working more than 5 years as an art director in different advertising agencies in Germany he dedicated himself to Information Architecture, Interface Design and User Experience Design. He worked as a consultant for Vodafone Global, German Telekom Laboratories, T-Home, and T-mobile. In 2010 Michael won the IF Design award as a responsible designer for the User Experience and User Interfaces of the German Telekom landline phone Sinus A 201. In 2008 Michael Dorka gained the EXIST scholarship from the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology in Germany. He investigated mobile technology services in Japan. Michael published articles on the website of the Design Research Network, in the book Designing Public, in the design magazine Tipografica and in the newspaper Buenos Aires Daily Herald. As a guest lecturer, he gave classes on the career of Interface Design at the Köln International School of Design [KISD], University of Buenos Aires (UBA), The National University of Technology Buenos Aires (UTN), and the University of La Plata [UNLP].
Specialties: User Experience Design, Service Design, Design Thinking, User Research, conversational design