Sabba Quidwai, EdD

Sabba Quidwai is CEO and Futurist at Designing Schools, where she works at the intersection of design thinking, emerging technologies, and education, guided by the belief that cultures of innovation begin with a culture of empathy. Her path there wasn't linear: after graduating in 2007 and starting her teaching career in Orange County, she was laid off four times during the Great Recession. A book by Seth Godin convinced her to stop waiting for a system to work and start taking ownership of problems herself. That shift led her to a school piloting iPads, where she watched quiet English language learners come alive through video, music, and storytelling, and it changed how she thought about technology and learning for good. That experience later took her to USC and to Apple, and eventually back to USC for a doctorate researching why students graduate so unprepared for the world they're entering.

Sabba sees Project Based Learning and design thinking as sharing the same DNA: both start with real problems, center student agency, and ask students to engage with meaningful work now rather than "someday." She's drawn to PBLWorks because it has spent years building the practices and evidence base the moment now demands, especially as AI reshapes what it means to be prepared for the world of work. She joins the Board eager to help the organization think about how PBL equips students not just to use new tools, but to know when and how to use them.

Outside of work, Sabba loves traveling, flying her drone, discovering new restaurants, and spending time with her niece, nephew, and family and friends over good food.