Design is your compass | Bonnie Shaw | DOA Guest Lecture
Join us for a lecture hosted by the Department of Architecture, Monash University.
We are entering uncharted territory, with AI upending how we do work, within a rapidly changing social, environmental, technological and political climate. How can we best steer through this as we begin our careers? Bonnie Shaw shares how design became her compass for navigating complexity and change through her career, honouring the battle scars and celebrating lessons learned along the way. An invitation to think expansively about where design skills can take you — and how they can help shape a better world.
Bonnie Shaw is a designer and innovation leader with a 30-year career spanning landscape architecture, planning and urban design, technology, startups, government and social innovation. Her work focuses on some of the defining challenges of our time — AI, institutional and community resilience, chronic stress, and the changing relationship between people, technology and place. She has advised governments, global organisations and communities, founded and scaled ventures, and led ambitious programs of public sector innovation and community collaboration. Bonnie is the Chief Innovator in Residence at the Municipal Association of Victoria where she leads the MAVlab, an innovation lab serving all 79 local governments in Victoria. She is also an industry Professor at RMIT University and Director of Many and Few where she leads Precious Space - a new type of learning-and-practice program for leaders working in increasing complexity and compounding crises.
The Department of Architecture Guest Lecture Series presents diverse guests who visit us to talk, teach and research the complexities of architecture today.
Event Details
- Date:
- 16 September 2026 at 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
- Venue:
- Lecture Theatre G1.04, Building G
- Categories:
- Design; Architecture; Current Students; Industry / Alumni
Description
Join us for a lecture hosted by the Department of Architecture, Monash University.
We are entering uncharted territory, with AI upending how we do work, within a rapidly changing social, environmental, technological and political climate. How can we best steer through this as we begin our careers? Bonnie Shaw shares how design became her compass for navigating complexity and change through her career, honouring the battle scars and celebrating lessons learned along the way. An invitation to think expansively about where design skills can take you — and how they can help shape a better world.
Bonnie Shaw is a designer and innovation leader with a 30-year career spanning landscape architecture, planning and urban design, technology, startups, government and social innovation. Her work focuses on some of the defining challenges of our time — AI, institutional and community resilience, chronic stress, and the changing relationship between people, technology and place. She has advised governments, global organisations and communities, founded and scaled ventures, and led ambitious programs of public sector innovation and community collaboration. Bonnie is the Chief Innovator in Residence at the Municipal Association of Victoria where she leads the MAVlab, an innovation lab serving all 79 local governments in Victoria. She is also an industry Professor at RMIT University and Director of Many and Few where she leads Precious Space - a new type of learning-and-practice program for leaders working in increasing complexity and compounding crises.
The Department of Architecture Guest Lecture Series presents diverse guests who visit us to talk, teach and research the complexities of architecture today.