Maurice Woods is the Executive Director and Founder of Inneract Project. He is an award winning professional designer with over 25 years of experience across advertising, design agency, startups and big tech companies such as BSSP, Pentagram Design, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

Throughout his career, Woods has received numerous accolades for his contributions to design and service to Black and Brown communities including the ‘Jefferson Award’ and the ‘Icons Among Us’ award. He is renowned for his years of work, writing, teaching, from middle school to graduate level, and lectures both in the U.S. and abroad, speaking at conferences like AIGA, Figma, Adobe Max, and ico-D. His influence extends to the screen, where he appeared in the internationally acclaimed film "Design Disruptors," and he is also featured in the Netflix special "Bad Sport" from his time as a basketball player.

In 2004, Maurice created Inneract Project to ensure that Black and Brown people of color are supported and represented in design fields. What began in 2004 as a grassroots volunteer effort to teach youth design has become thriving community and organization unwavering in its mission with over 10,000 students served to day.

Born and raised in Richmond, CA, he began his career as a basketball player, playing professionally overseas for 7 seasons after graduating from the University of Washington, in Seattle, with a BFA and MFA in Visual Communication Design. Maurice currently works as a Principal design manager at Microsoft and was recently featured in book, The Black Design Experience: Identity Expression and Reflection, by Anne Berry et al. publish by Allworth Press in 2022.