What we’re about
Sydney Design Thinking (SydDT) is a diverse community of 9,500+ 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 (4+)
See all- SydDT #106: State of the Design Nation with Ben Crothers & Nila RezaeiILUMINA at Macquarie Group, SydneyA$0.01
RSVPs ARE OPEN BUT NOT ON THIS PAGE. REGISTER HERE!
We're lucky to have Ben Crothers and Nila Rezaei sharing their reflections as a couple of the judges for the 2024 Good Design Awards. Since 2018, this has become an annual SydDT tradition and a time to reflect on the state of the design nation...
Come join us for some fun conversations with interesting people in and around the design community.
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.
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.
Nila Rezaei
Founder & Lead Designer, RK Collective. Good Design Ambassador
Nila is an Iranian-Australian industrial designer and educator, with a diverse background spanning industries, from manufactured consumer products to large-scale environmental and spatial design, site-specific products and installations to material design. Nila’s primary goal is to design solutions that not only fulfill utilitarian needs but also enhance the emotional connection between people and products, leaving a lasting positive social and environmental impact.Her career began at Vert Design Studio, with diverse clients including entrepreneurs, startups, and multinational firms. She recently founded RK Collective, as a response to a world increasingly confronted with environmental, societal, and ethical challenges, focusing on projects that are ‘deliberately’ innovative and balance culture, ecology, and commercial needs.
Her work has earned recognition from prestigious awards and has been showcased in various local and global presentations, exhibitions, and talks. Nila’s commitment to the Australian design scene extends to academia, teaching at UNSW in both Bachelor and Master degrees, serving as Deputy-Chair of the Design Institute Australia’s (DIA) NSW council. She is also a co-founder of IDX SYD (Industrial Design eXchange Sydney*)*, fostering collaboration and connection among industrial designers in Sydney and beyond.
Steve Packham
Chief Design Officer, Corporate Operations Group, Macquarie Group
Steve is the Chief Design Officer for the Corporate Operations Group at Macquarie and has worked in financial services for 15+ years across New York, London, and now Sydney.He's an advocate for equipping people from all backgrounds and skillsets with everyday design skills. His passion for leveraging design practices across Macquarie has seen teams amplify their impact and elevated the role of design in digital experiences.
Note: Rachel Zhang was scheduled to speak but can't make it now unfortunately... but we're lucky to have Nila Rezaei step in!
DESIGN CONNECTION
Design Connection #3 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 😃
EVENT SPONSORS
This event is brought to you by Macquarie Group, Sh8peshifters, and Dynamic4. - SydDT #108: Visual Thinking with Alan Chen & Diana Ayoub from Sh8peshiftersThoughtworks, SydneyA$10.00
We're lucky to have Alan Chen and Diana Ayoub from Sh8peshifters kicking off SydDT for 2025 with visual thinking workshops!
Come join us for some fun conversations with interesting people in and around the design thinking community. New members are welcome!
More details closer to the date...
SPEAKERS
Alan Chen
Co-founder & Visual Storyteller, Sh8peshifters
Awesome bio coming soon...Diana Ayoub
Co-founder & Visual Storyteller, Sh8peshifters
Awesome bio coming soon...EVENT SPONSORS
This meetup is brought to you by Thoughtworks, Sh8peshifters, and Dynamic4.
