Professor Sarah Pink
Director of the Emerging Technologies Research Lab, Monash University

Professor Pink is a world-leading Design Anthropologist, known for her development of innovative digital, visual and sensory research and dissemination methodologies. She applies these in cross-cutting projects involving design, engineering and creative practice disciplines to address contemporary issues and challenges.

Sarah is founding Director of the Emerging Technologies Research Lab at Monash University. Her current research focuses on futures through research into emerging technologies, automation, data, digital technologies, safety and design for wellbeing.

Sarah is known globally for her interdisciplinary research which brings design anthropology into collaboration with other disciplines and partners inside and outside of academia. She has over 20 years experience of working with academic and industry research partners internationally and frequently gives keynote and public lectures in academic and business environments. Her recent works include her book Doing Visual Ethnography (2021) and the documentary Laundry Lives (co-Directed with Nadia Astari 2015).

Rama Gheerawo
Director, The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art RCA Reader in Inclusive Design

Mr Gheerawo is an international figure within design. He won a Design Week ‘Hall of Fame’ award in 2019 and was named a 2018 Creative Leader by Creative Review alongside Paul Smith and Björk.

Addressing diversity across age, ability, gender and race, he is a serial innovator in the field of Inclusive Design and Design Thinking – having led over 100 international projects with government, business, academia and the third sector. His clients include Samsung, Toyota and Panasonic.

Mr Gheerawo champions creative leadership, having trained thousands of people including over 750 civil servants. He holds visiting professorships and advisory roles globally for business, new ventures, universities, awards and initiatives including D&AD, The Valuable 500, the RSA Decolonizing panel and the Global Disability Innovation Hub at London’s Olympic Park.

Professor Ann Light
Professor of Design and Creative Technology, University of Sussex (UK)
Professor of Interaction Design, Social Change and Sustainability at Malmö University (Sweden)

Professor Light is a qualitative researcher, working at the University of Sussex and Malmo University as a Professor of Design. She is interested in how people relate to each other in contemporary society and the impact of present and future design choices, having looked particularly at the lives of older people over many years.

She specialises in participatory practice and the social impact of technology, bringing a background in arts, humanities, AI and human-computer interaction to bear on innovation in social process, culture, and wellbeing.

Professor Light’s work addresses themes of social and ecological justice; the co-making of futures and the politics of design. She  is currently investigating how creative practices can promote transformations to sustainability. She is co-author of the book Designing Connected Products: UX for the Consumer Internet of Things (O'Reilly 2015).

Professor Elisa Giaccardi
Professor and Chair of Post-industrial Design, and Director of Design for Interaction (Msc program), Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology

Associate Editor, Springer HCI

Project Lead, international DCODE Network

In her role at Delft University of Technology, Professor Giaccardi leads the Connected Everyday Lab. Her work focuses on the challenges that permeating digitalisation means for design. From early digital networks and social media to IoT and AI, her interests reflect a persistent concern with design as a shared process of cultivation and management of opportunity spaces – and the transformative role technology can play.

A pioneer of metadesign, networked and open design processes, Professor Giaccardi explores how modern digital things ‘participate’ in design and use in ways previous industrially-produced objects could not.

A TEDx and frequent keynote speaker, Professor Giaccardi brings an interdisciplinary background in humanities, digital media, and interaction design. She has contributed significantly to post-industrial and post-humanist approaches in design through 100+ peer-reviewed conference and journal papers and book chapters, and funded research projects in memory practices, ageing and the future of work..