Dare to Design Our Health Future

Jane is an expert in Design Thinking and is the founder of Kairos Now.

Thirty plus years of experience within the healthcare market has highlighted to Jane the importance of the customer, patient and consumer relationships and the delivery of good outcomes. So it seemed natural for Jane to lead an organisation that advocates and explores the voice of the customer, consumer, patients and their families.

By tapping into a designer’s mindset Jane can help you identify the future that will make a difference for your organisation. You will discover what really matters to your customers, consumers, patients and their families. This discovery is critical to shape a clear and clever strategy and way of working that will differentiate your organisation from others.

Jane is a facilitator, coach and consultant. She thrives on shaping projects and working with you as part of the team. She also is driven by building your organisation's capability through her train, coach, mentor style of action learning.

Session Title: "Humanising complex societal problems - The role of deep stakeholder insights in design"

Dr. Mieke van der Bijl-Brouwer is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney in the Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation. Mieke’s research spans the fields of human-centred design and innovation in the public and social sector. She is particularly interested in the innovation practices that are required to address today’s complex societal problems.

In her role at UTS she is also responsible for the design and delivery of subjects for the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation. Mieke holds a Master of Science in Industrial Design Engineering from Delft University of Technology, and a PhD in User-Centred Design from the University of Twente, both in the Netherlands.

Mieke's session

Design is becoming increasingly popular as an approach to address complex societal problems such as chronic health issues, climate change, social isolation and a growing elderly population. One element of design that is often applied in these social design and innovation practices is design’s human-centeredness. Many scholars and practitioners agree that a deep understanding of the needs and aspirations of stakeholders are required to develop innovative solutions.

Empathy generating activities, real-life personas, and inspirational stories are just a few of the many methods and tools that are available to generate these insights. But what do we really mean when we talk about a ‘deep’ understanding? And how do these insights then take us to new and innovative solutions? In this talk I will shed some light on this question by introducing a model that distinguishes different levels of depth in human-centred design and innovation, and by showing how the deepest levels impact the generation of innovative solutions. I will illustrate this with case studies from the educational and health sector.

Rethinking the way we engage with consumers

“Society needs a new brand of thinkers.”

Power shortages, housing affordability, gridlock congestion — growth and economic buoyancy is generating problems that are interconnected and interdependent. Paradoxically our own prosperity threatens to undermine the economic fundamentals that created it. A new approach to thinking is needed so as not to accentuate problems elsewhere.

However, before engineers can tackle the problems that society needs solving, they will first have to disrupt their own thinking processes. This presentation follows the journey of how a global engineering group has had to redesign itself from the inside out to remain relevant in a world of uncertainties and contradictions.

About John

In this role John is responsible for driving innovation, design and strategic new directions within Aurecon. 

John is a degree qualified mechanical engineer with over 25 years of postgraduate experience. He has had a career in both consulting and contracting in Australia, the Middle East and the United Kingdom. 

He has been involved in the successful delivery of a wide range of technically sophisticated and challenging projects, with specific capability in the area of life sciences, health, pharmaceuticals, forensic and specialist containment laboratories and clean room facilities. He is highly regarded and recognised throughout Australia for his creative and innovative design approach to engineering and project leadership. 

He has recently been working with the Design Innovation Research Centre at University Technology Sydney in the field of design thinking and design led innovation and is responsible for bringing design innovation to our key client offerings. 

John is highly regarded and recognised for his creative and innovative design approach to engineering and in particular his skill and expertise in sustainability. He has published numerous papers on the subject and is also a guest lecturer at the University of Western Australia in the field.