Born in Seattle, raised in Waco, Texas, grown up in Berkeley, and rooted in East and North Oakland (“The Town”), Milan Drake calls all these places home—they shape how he leads, designs, and thinks. Driven by the belief that real transformation requires less talking and more doing, Milan creates work that bridges education, design, and community impact.

As the Community Design Lead at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (Stanford d.school), Milan co-teaches Print on Purpose, a course blending design, social justice, and printmaking, and is the creator of mixTAPE x maniFESTO, a globally celebrated workshop connecting Hip-Hop culture with design thinking.

With over 25 years of experience, Milan has led programs and initiatives centering the well-being of historically excluded communities. His career spans higher education, social enterprise, corporate America, and design thinking firms, where he has consistently amplified unheard voices. From dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline to creating learning-based alternatives for incarcerated students, Milan’s work reflects a deep commitment to participatory advocacy and integrating “Black Thought” as both pedagogy and design process.

Milan earned a BS in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley as a non-traditional student-parent, finding his footing in service at Stiles Hall through the Experience Berkeley Transfer Program. He completed an MA in Education at Stanford University, where his research explores Black pedagogies and their transformative potential.