SydDT #100 was a celebration of a couple of milestones. Our 9th birthday… and 100th meetup!
A full night with an engaging fireside chat with Therese Konwerski and Keith Diamond who shared some of their stories and insights on designing inclusive digital products and services in public services. Kylie Mageropoulos and Lucas Mara did a great job leading the chat.
There was also live sketchnoting, extreme rock, paper, scissors, a prize draw (congrats to Aayushi Gajjar for winning a copy my book Solve Problems That Matter), cupcakes, pizza, drinks… and a bunch of awesome people who make up the SydDT community.
Thanks to everyone who came along and made it such a fun night. Couldn’t make it or just want to relive it? It’s on Youtube now.
A huge thanks to Thoughtworks for hosting and sponsoring and to Alan Chen and Diana Ayoub from Sh8peshifters for doing their magic and live sketchnoting the meetup. A big thanks to Lanson Partners, The Growth Habit, and Dynamic4 who were the other sponsors.
Over the past nine years and 100 meetups, we’ve been lucky to have 200+ great speakers with interesting stories and insights to share. They’ve been the catalyst for so much discussion that adds real value to the community. A massive thanks to you all… and sometime soon I’ll compile the full list!
A small team of us volunteer to make SydDT happen every month. A big thanks to my fellow organisers… Lucas Mara, Zoe Gibson, Kate Linton, and Kylie Mageropoulos. Also a shoutout to Kingsley Jones and James Cooper who were co-founders and part of the team for the first few years.
On Thursday, we also said thanks and farewell to Zoe who’s moving to Chicago and leaving the SydDT organising team. Zoe has been a key part of our team since 2015.
Most importantly, thanks to the 9,414 members of the SydDT community. You’re the reason we do this every month.
Our next meetup is SydDT #101: AI Needs Design, More Than Design Needs AI with Chris Rollings on Thursday, 11 July. More details coming soon but grab your ticket now!
Meetup Announcement
Thursday, 13 June 2024 @ 6pm. Thoughtworks, Sydney
At SydDT #100 on 13 June, we’re lucky to have Therese Konwerski and Keith Diamond sharing some of their stories of designing inclusive digital products and services in public services. Come join us for some fun conversations with interesting people keen on design thinking. Grab your ticket now!
We’ll also be celebrating a couple of milestones. Our 9th birthday… and 100th meetup! There might even be cake 😃
And we’re closing in on 10,000 SydDT members. For some fun – and as an incentive to join SydDT (for free) – everyone who joins between now and 12 June will go into the draw to win a copy of my book Solve Problems That Matter. I’ll put all names into a randomiser and draw the winner at our meetup on 13 June… and you don’t need to be in the room to win – we can only fit ~80 😄
Speakers
Therese Konwerski
Principal Product Owner, NSW Fair Trading & Regulatory Services – Department of Customer Service
Therese is the Principal Product Owner at NSW Fair Trading and Regulatory Services within the Department of Customer Service. She’s a certified Scrum Product Owner and has experience working on multiple digital and data projects for Fair Trading where she has worked for over eight years and currently leads the Digital and Data Delivery team building the Strata Hub.
Therese has a passion for digital innovation and finding ways to improve user experience to make digital tools accessible and as easy to use as possible.
Keith Diamond
Head of Social Impact, Symplicit
Keith brings over 15 years of multi-disciplinary leadership and strategic thinking to experience design drawing from a diverse background in urban design, media production, and psychology. He’s delivered government keynotes and webinars advocating for human-centred universal design, while his work supporting communities affected by natural disasters has earned recognition as Best in Class for Design Research at Australia’s Good Design Awards.
Keith is a director and Head of Social Impact at Symplicit, a human-centred agency offering end-to-end design and implementation services for a broad range of clients, including organisations delivering public services. He’s passionate about using collaborative co-design, data-driven outcomes, and trauma-informed practice to deliver inclusive, heart-felt impact.
Event Sponsors
A huge thanks to our sponsors for this event… Thoughtworks for hosting, Lanson Partners, The Growth Habit, and Dynamic4.
30 May: SydDT #99
We’ve got one SydDT before then. On 30 May, Martin Tomitsch and Steve Baty will be talking about their new book Designing Tomorrow and the journey that led to the book. It’s been sold out but I’ve just released a few more tickets.
What’s SydDT
Sydney Design Thinking (SydDT) is a diverse community of 9,000+ members. We’ve been meeting monthly since 2015 to explore the world of design thinking as a human-centred design approach to innovation and solving complex problems – to help create positive outcomes for people, our planet, and business.
We’re one of the top design thinking meetups globally. You can watch some of our meetups here.
