About us
Sydney Design Thinking (SydDT) is a diverse community of 10,000+ members. We've been meeting monthly since 2015 to explore the world of design thinking as a human-centred design and living systems 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.
The vision for the SydDT meetup from the get go was to build a connected community and ecosystem of people from a diverse range of design and business practices, industries, contexts, and roles… to learn and share. To get exposed to what others are doing and see what's possible.
We’re proud to see this in our community – our members are experience designers, researchers, service designers, startup founders, product people, consultants, academics, anthropologists, architects, software engineers, project managers, medicos, engineers, and many other roles.
We keep it pretty casual with plenty of time for networking before jumping into talks, panels, and workshops on a broad range of topics - with a healthy Q&A that often turns into a group discussion. You can read a bit about the history and journey of our community and events here.
New members are welcome! If you’re not already a member, feel free to join our community. Each meetup audience is curated to a degree to make sure we have a mix of new people, as well as the committed regulars.
We’d love to hear from you if you’re keen to speak – or if there’s someone you think we should invite to speak.
Thanks
Ben Pecotich, Kylie Mageropoulos, Kate Linton & Lucas Mara
Sydney Design Thinking (SydDT) Organising Team
Upcoming events
3
- A$17.00
SydDT #131: Lead Change That Matters with Ben Pecotich
Thoughtworks, Level 14, 210 George St, Sydney, AUJoin us for the launch of my Ben Pecotich's new book Lead Change That Matters: Design the Conditions for Momentum!
Your ticket includes all the usual SydDT goodness… plus a set of limited-edition Lead Change That Matters cards that we’ll use on the night to catalyse conversation and help you choose your own journey. You’ll also get a special launch discount on Ben's new book.
300+ people shared their experiences, goals, frustrations, and hopes through the research behind the book – including so many of you from the SydDT community.
Lead Change That Matters is a call to action. It says the work matters, the people involved matter, and what we choose to do next matters.
This session is for you if you’re:
- Leading change you’re accountable for but can’t really control
- Navigating complexity with increasing ambiguity and uncertainty
- Caring for everyone’s wellbeing but dodging your own burnout
- Firefighting the tactical when you want to lead the strategic change that matters
At the heart of the book is a tension that ran through the research. Leaders are expected to juggle more as the work becomes faster, more complex, and more scrutinised… but the conditions around them haven’t kept pace with what’s being demanded.
We want people to collaborate, adapt, take the initiative, and deliver meaningful results. What are we doing to make that possible?
The premise is that leading change well is about designing the conditions for people to do meaningful work together – bringing purpose and performance together to build momentum and deliver results that matter.
We’ll explore these themes together… with a focus on how we design the conditions for momentum, so we can lead change that matters.
Come join us for some fun conversations with interesting people in and around the design thinking community. New members are welcome!
SPEAKER
Ben Pecotich
Design & Innovation Director/Founder, Dynamic4. Author of Lead Change That Matters: Design the Conditions for Momentum
Ben's a designer, adviser, and founder of Dynamic4. He works alongside leaders and their teams on their most complex challenges across strategy, design, and tech.For 30+ years, Ben's led, designed, and delivered strategic change in financial services in Australia, NZ, Asia, the UK, and Europe – and co-founded 20+ startups and social enterprises across health and fitness, fintech, events, and community building. He founded Dynamic4 in 2001.
Ben takes a human-centred design and living systems approach to helping clients design, build, and launch ideas that customers and teams love, make money, and do great things for people and our planet while increasing wellbeing.
Everything he does is about accelerating the transition to more regenerative ways of living and doing business, creating the conditions for people and communities to be happier and live on a healthier planet.
Ben's the author of Solve Problems That Matter and his new book Lead Change That Matters: Design the Conditions for Momentum is launching now. He's also the co-founder of Sydney Design Thinking.
EVENT SPONSORS
This event is brought to you by Thoughtworks, Shapeshifters, and Dynamic4.We take photos and record our events for documentation and promo purposes. Just let us know if you prefer not to be featured.
19 attendees - A$12.00
SydDT #132: State of the Design Nation with Ben Crothers & Min Kong
Thoughtworks, Level 14, 210 George St, Sydney, AUWe’re lucky to have Ben Crothers and Min Kong sharing their reflections as a couple of the judges for the 2026 Good Design Awards. This has been a SydDT tradition since 2018 and a time to reflect on the state of the design nation… full of interesting observations, insights, and trends.
Good Design Australia has a proud history that dates back to 1958 and they’re passionately committed to recognising, rewarding, and promoting the importance of design to business, industry, government and the general public… and the critical role it plays in creating a better, safer, and a more sustainable and prosperous future.
Come join us for some fun conversations with interesting people in and around the design thinking community. New members are welcome!
SPEAKERS
Ben Crothers
Principal Facilitator, Bright Pilots. Good Design Ambassador
Ben has been a designer since before Netscape ruled the www, and is currently a facilitator and design strategist at Bright Pilots (his online training and facilitation business), where he teaches teams of all sorts about design and facilitation methods, running strategic workshops, and generally helping teams get un-stuck.Previous to Bright Pilots, Ben was Principal Designer at Atlassian, a Design Director at Second Road (a strategic innovation consultancy), plus some assorted startups, agencies, and government departments.
Above all, Ben wants everyone to be just as good at the whiteboard as they are at the keyboard, to be better at thinking, communicating, and solving problems together visually. He’s the author of a few books, including Presto Sketching: Simple Drawing for Brilliant Product Thinking and Design.
Min Kong
Associate Design Director, Caon Design Office. Good Design Ambassador
Min is a strategic designer with nearly two decades of experience shaping physical products, services, and environments across aviation, transport infrastructure, healthcare and consumer sectors.Her approach brings together strategic thinking, experience design, and industrial design expertise to uncover opportunities for innovation and improvement and translate complex business and customer needs into high-quality, tangible experiences with real-world impact.
At Caon Design Office, Min currently leads customer experience design across major Qantas Airways aircraft programs, including the flagship Project Sunrise A350 fleet.
Min’s work has been recognised through multiple design awards, including the Australian Good Design Awards and Red Dot Design Award.
An active member of the design community, Min taught industrial design at UNSW for over a decade and has served on multiple design award juries.
EVENT SPONSORS
This event is brought to you by Thoughtworks, Shapeshifters, Bright Pilots, and Dynamic4.We take photos and record our events for documentation and promo purposes. Just let us know if you prefer not to be featured.
6 attendees 
SydDT #133/Design Connection #8: EOY Design Megameetup
Sydney, AUFor our final SydDT for 2026, we’ll be reflecting on and celebrating the year that’s been. A good chance to connect with the community and welcome plenty of new people. New friends and old.
We’re doing this one as Design Connection #8… another in our design megameetup series with our friends from the CCX and EUX meetups.
This continues our tradition of EOY megameetups since 2018.
Come join us for some fun conversations with interesting people in and around the design community. This will sell out fast… be quick 😃More details soon...
DESIGN CONNECTION
Design Connection #8 is another in our design megameetup series.Design Connection is a collective of three Sydney design meetups… Ben Pecotich from Sydney Design Thinking (SydDT), Adam Faulkner from Enterprise UX (EUX), and Kevin Wilkins from Creative Customer Experience (CCX), with Susan Wolfe and Vera Chan being the backbone of Design Connection 😃
We take photos and record our events for documentation and promo purposes. Just let us know if you prefer not to be featured.cc
4 attendees
Past events
130
