Australia Design Thinking is a collective of place-based design communities with 12,000+ members in Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Byron, Melbourne, Gold Coast – and online. More to come.
New members are welcome!
Australia Design Thinking (AusDT)’s purpose is to build a connected community and ecosystem of people from a diverse range of design and business practices, industries, contexts, and roles… to learn, share, and get exposed to what’s possible.
Our vision is design thinking is used as a human-centred design and living systems approach to innovation and solving complex problems – to help create great outcomes for people, our planet, and business.
What to Expect
The Australia Design Thinking community is known for being fun, welcoming, and inclusive.
We keep things pretty casual and know most of the value comes from awesome people in the community spending time with each other and building relationships. Our role is to convene and make space for those interactions.
Each place-based community is convened by a team of local people and meet at a frequency and with formats that suit the community. We’re a community of 12,000+ people across the five locations.
We have in-person events in each location – and the Australia Design Thinking Linkedin group as an online place to share events, news, articles, and other inspiration… and continue conversations.
New members are welcome! Come and join us 😃
Values aligned and want help bringing together your local design community? Contact Ben Pecotich.
Australia Design Thinking Collective
We’re lucky to have a thriving design community in Australia and each of these communities is convened by local people who invest so much in building community and the ecosystem.
Sydney Design Thinking
Sydney Design Thinking (SydDT) is led by Ben Pecotich, Kate Linton, Kylie Mageropoulos, and Lucas Mara.
The first SydDT meetup was in June 2015 and we’ve had 115+ meetups since. We’re a diverse community of 10,000+ members and meet on the second Thursday of the month.
Check out write-ups, photos, and videos of past SydDT events.
Adelaide Design Thinking
Adelaide Design Thinking (AdlDT) is led by Tash Ballantyne and Maria Raymond with a great support team.
The first AdlDT meetup was in February 2025 and we meet every second month.
Brisbane Design Thinking
Brisbane Design Thinking is led by Johanna Bullin.
The community started as IxDA Brisbane in 2021 and joined the AusDT collective in June 2025 to open up stronger collaboration and a more connected design community.
Byron Design Thinking
Byron Design Thinking is led by Will Stuart.
The community started as IxDA Byron Bay in 2024 and joined the AusDT collective in June 2025 to open up stronger collaboration and a more connected design community.
Melbourne Design Thinking
Melbourne Design Thinking (MelbDT) is led by Mickey Rummery, Rachel Zhang and Brad Alphonso.
The first MelbDT meetup was on 4 September 2025 and the plan is to meet monthly.
Gold Coast Design Thinking
Gold Coast Design Thinking (GCDT) is led by Rob Napier, Ash Donaldson, Tam Nóbrega, and Dario Civinelli.
The community started as UXGC in 2023 and joined the AusDT collective in September 2025 to open up stronger collaboration and a more connected design community.
See you at an AusDT meetup soon!