SydDT #120/Australia Design Thinking SXSW Sydney Meetup

We’re stoked SydDT is part of SXSW Sydney again this year. This time with a twist 😃

We’re doing this one as the Australia Design Thinking (AusDT) collective!

This will be a casual and interactive meetup for anyone interested in design thinking and design in general. A great chance to meet some people in and around the Sydney design community and beyond… catch up with old friends and make some new ones.

We’ll be in The Ideas Dome in the middle of Tumbalong Park.

Great news… this is a free event as part of SXSW Sydney Unlocked, so you DON’T need a SXSW Sydney pass to attend. Come and hang out!

Your hosts will be Natasha Ballantyne from Adelaide Design Thinking, William Stuart from Byron Design Thinking, Rachel Zhang from Melbourne Design Thinking… and Ben Pecotich from SydDT. We should have more of the organisers too.

Why not come for the whole week of SXSW Sydney? Check out the full SXSW Sydney program. Contact Ben for a 10% discount on your pass. See you there!

HOSTS
Ben Pecotich
Sydney Design Thinking (SydDT)
Ben is a designer, coach, and founder of Dynamic4 – a social enterprise and B Corp focused on leadership, design, and innovation for happier communities… and making the transition to more regenerative ways of living and doing business.

He coaches and works alongside leaders to solve problems that matter by designing and building business models, products, and services that customers and teams love, make money, do great things for people and our planet, while increasing wellbeing.

For 30+ years, Ben’s led, designed, and delivered strategic change in financial services, digital & tech, health & fitness, and founded startups/social enterprises – in Australia, NZ, Asia, the UK, and Europe. He founded Dynamic4 in 2001 and takes a human-centred design and living systems approach to bring together strategy, design, and tech.

Ben’s the author of Solve Problems That Matter: Design, Build & Launch Your Social Enterprise Idea and co-founder of Sydney Design Thinking and convener of Australia Design Thinking.

SydDT is a diverse community of 10,000+ members. We’ve been meeting monthly since 2015 and had 115+ meetups. We’re one of the top design thinking meetups globally.

Tash Ballantyne
Adelaide Design Thinking
Tash leads design and user research teams with a focus on digital transformation. She is one of the 2025 AFR Women in Leadership recognised for her work in consulting, teaching, and digital inclusion.

She is a Managing Director and the Head of Design at Scyne Advisory, and one of the founders of the sell-out Adelaide Design Thinking meet ups.

Natasha has lectured with Sydney University, Torrens University, Academy Xi and University of Technology Sydney. She is a renowned industry speaker in digital inclusion focusing on designing products and services for vulnerable cohorts.

Will Stuart
Byron Design Thinking
Will Stuart is the founder of Byron Design Thinking, a no-nonsense design and product community in the Northern Rivers (NSW).

By day, he is a Lead Designer at TAFE NSW, where he leads projects to improve how courses are planned, designed, built and continually improved to make them more customer‑centric. With over a decade driving transformation in government and education, Will is driven by a passion for where technology meets good design.

His work spans digital transformation, AI augmented design, and community-building, but at the heart of it all is a driving force to bring people together to design a better future.

Rach Zhang
Melbourne Design Thinking
Rach is a seasoned experience designer with over 15 years of expertise at some of Australia and UK’s foremost digital enterprises such as Telstra, Google, Accenture, AKQA, Westpac, R/GA – as well as starting her own businesses in design consultancy, team assessments, and education.

Her portfolio spans diverse profit for purpose projects, including the transformative re-design of the Parliament of Victoria experience and spearheading research and strategic design initiatives for the future vision of WorkSafe Victoria’s digital inspector’s tool. Rach’s career has also seen her contributions at RMIT, where she pioneered innovative pathways for career progression through education.

Rach, her fiancé, and two cats just moved back to Melbourne in February 2025. Her dream is to rebrand the “crazy cat lady” as aspirational. She’s also the co-founder of Melbourne Design Thinking.

What is Australia Design Thinking (AusDT)?
AusDT is a collective of place-based design communities with 12,000+ members in Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Byron, Melbourne – and online. More to come.
Our purpose is to build a connected community and ecosystem of people from a diverse range of design and business practices, industries, contexts, and roles… to learn, share, and get exposed to what’s possible.
This is with the vision that design thinking is used as a human-centred design and living systems approach to innovation and solving complex problems – to help create great outcomes for people, our planet, and business.

EVENT SPONSORS
This event is brought to you by SXSW Sydney and Dynamic4.

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