From Farm to Figma: Permaculture Wisdom for Digital Design

Drawing on lessons learnt from my time as a permaculture designer and educator, I explored how ecological design principles can inform thoughtful, modern digital practice. This talk offered both conceptual and practical insights to bridge the gap between traditional and modern technologies, using a whole-systems thinking approach.

The Soft Skill That Pays Hard Dividends: Facilitation in Tech

Shining a light on an overlooked capability behind high-performing tech teams, this talk showed how facilitation can lead us through the ambiguity and challenges of working with humans. Based on real use cases and user research at the CSIRO, I shared three focus areas to help technical experts build facilitation muscles, turning everyday meetings and workshops into powerful tools for connection, clarity, and creativity.

Safe to Stretch: a Trauma-Informed Approach to Learning During Change

Grounded in lived experience and practical design tools, I shared my framework for creating learning that offers safe and productive challenge in order to support behaviour change in the workplace. This session framed trauma-informed practice as not just compassionate, but essential for sustainable change, risk-reduction, and successful business outcomes.

Me, Myself, and AI

What happens to our professional identity when AI starts doing the things we’ve always used to define our value? Sharing personal stories of how I reinvented my own identity after several major ‘lifequakes’, I explore how we can navigate big changes and rethink what makes us designers. The talk invites us to challenge our assumptions, rediscover what matters, and make more deliberate choices about the role AI plays in our creative practice.