Mindy Nam opens the day with warmth, perspective and purpose. She sets the tone for what’s ahead—a day of ideas, reflection and bold conversation.

Curiosity is a superpower. It fuels creativity, challenges the status quo and helps designers see what others miss. In this interactive session, Simon Banks explores how curiosity sharpens our thinking, unlocks innovation and helps us tackle complex design challenges with fresh eyes. Through a visual journey into famous artworks, Simon will train your eyes to spot the unseen. Expect bold questions, new connections and a reminder that curiosity is not a soft skill. It is a designer’s edge.

In this presentation, Amanda shares her journey from an accidental graphic designer to a leader in transforming teams with a simple, pragmatic approach. Tired of overcomplicated processes, she advocates for "Happy Medium" design—where action and experimentation take precedence over theory and perfection. Her framework encourages focusing on outcomes, testing ideas quickly, and using research only when it adds real value.

Amanda will share how she used her framework on an absurd, real-life experiment: testing the idea of starting a farm with no farming experience. The talk’s takeaway? Be nimble, resourceful, and embrace failure as a way to learn and grow. It's all about finding happiness in design and bringing pragmatic, actionable solutions to every challenge—big or small!

What happens when your work shapes systems, but your title has no name? In 2024, “design” was formally recognised in Australia’s occupational classifications, yet service and strategic design were left out. Laura Kostanski and Simon Goodrich explore what it means to be essential but invisible. Without recognition, we risk losing influence, clarity and credibility. This session considers how naming shapes power, how language defines value, and why design’s future may depend on being counted.

What if the path to purpose isn’t linear, but uniquely wired? Rachelle shares the story of starting Kite Therapy, a startup making therapy for autistic children more accessible. This is a talk about designing systems that work for your brain, your mission and your pace. With honesty and clarity, Rachelle reflects on building a company, balancing impact and ambition, and what it means to succeed on your own terms.

Building confidence as a designer is hard when you cannot predict how people will interact with your work. Vivian Yu and Timothy Parker share how design experimentation gives designers the tools to make better decisions and influence with clarity. Through real case studies from Jira, they offer a step-by-step look at how to run experiments, gather insights and translate data into action. This session is for designers ready to move from guesswork to grounded influence.

As technology becomes more accessible and commoditised, design is fast becoming the edge that sets products apart. Corey explores how design is not just shaping interfaces but transforming the organisations behind them. From building design-literate cultures to navigating the rise of AI, this session unpacks the evolving role of designers as strategic enablers. With insight from global teams and his work at Figma, Corey shares how design can be the unfair advantage in today’s digital product landscape.

What if the secret to better design is learning when to move fast and when to go deep? At just 23, Ryan shares lessons from building Insert Frame and teaching tens of thousands of designers how to create and ship with speed and purpose. This session is a high-energy guide to choosing momentum over hesitation. Expect insight into startup ways of working, knowing when to invest or iterate, and how to design with focus, clarity and creative fire.

How do designers move from showcasing work to shaping direction? From getting things done to guiding what gets done? In this candid fireside chat, Alex and Prar explore the journey from execution to influence—and from visibility to strategic value.

Through personal stories, practical tips and career insights, they unpack how to build trust, guide decisions and grow into leadership. This is a conversation for designers at every stage, ready to shift how they work, lead and create impact.

Most digital products are built for individuals. But in Southeast Asia, life is communal. Stevanus explores how designing for families, friends and shared responsibilities unlocks more inclusive, intuitive and trusted experiences. From Grab’s Family Account and Teen Access to collaborative flows in GrabMaps, this session shows how designing for interdependence can drive growth, loyalty and scale. If your product touches layered relationships, this talk will challenge you to design not just for users, but for the communities they live in.

Does mastery always lead to meaningful change? Julia Suh challenges this assumption, urging designers to move beyond expertise and into deeper systems thinking. She explores how rigid frameworks can limit potential, and how impact demands more than polished process. Through bold questions and strategic disruption, Julia reframes design as a living system—one that evolves, adapts and sustains outcomes over time. This is a session for those ready to expand their remit and design with lasting intent.

What happens when design meets business with equal weight? Carlos reflects on his journey from passionate designer to strategic leader, and how learning to speak the language of business changed the impact he could make. 

In this candid session, he shares lessons from maturing his practice, tackling more complex problems, and finding power in pragmatism. It is a call for designers to embrace not just aesthetics, but operating models, to drive change where it matters most.

As AI systems take on greater autonomy, the role of design is shifting. Andrea shares how trust becomes the true product when experiences are powered by models that learn, decide and act in real time. Drawing from her work at REA Group, Andrea explores how to build calibrated trust, design for failure and embed ethics early. This session is a call for designers to shape AI with care, clarity and responsibility—because the future of AI must be designed, not just deployed.

Our material world has been designed through systems of extraction, exploitation and ego. In this provocative session, Sarah D’Sylva argues that sustainable design without dismantling patriarchy is a dead-end—and it’s time we said so out loud. Blending sharp insight, personal story and real-world case studies, Sarah exposes how performative sustainability props up broken systems. This is a call to redesign from the ground up, centring circular innovation, collective care and the courage to challenge power.

What does it mean to stay creative when life is uncertain, messy or nothing like you expected? Vida Asrina Dhulst shares her journey from growing up in conflict-affected Aceh and surviving the 2004 tsunami to navigating migration, identity and design leadership in Australia. This is a quiet reflection on resilience, creativity and leading with difference. For anyone who has felt out of place in design, it offers a reminder that creativity is not just about making. It is about adapting, listening and continuing anyway.

What if imposter syndrome isn’t a flaw, but a design problem? In this honest and reflective session, Dhruv Sharma draws on his experiences growing up queer and brown in 90s India, and building a career across consulting and design leadership in Australia. Blending personal story with behavioural science and design thinking, Dhruv reframes self-doubt as a learned loop that can be redesigned. This is a talk about rewiring the inner narrative, and turning difference into your greatest advantage.