Designing Transformation

[[{"fid":"15463","view_mode":"small","fields":{"format":"small","alignment":"left","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Dan Hill","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"small","alignment":"left","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Dan Hill","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"1024","width":"683","class":"media-element file-small media-wysiwyg-align-left"}}]]Professor Dan Hill is Director of Melbourne School of Design, the graduate school in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne, Australia. A designer and urbanist, Dan's previous leadership roles include the Swedish government’s innovation agency Vinnova in Stockholm, Arup in London and Sydney, Fabrica in Treviso, the Finnish Innovation Fund SITRA in Helsinki, and the UK's Future Cities Catapult and BBC in London. Dan is also a Visiting Professor of Practice and Advisory Board member at UCL's Institute for Innovation and Public Practice and a founder member of the Council on Urban Initiatives. Dan was one of the inaugural Design Advocates for the Mayor of London and a Trustee of Participatory City Foundation. He is the author of the books 'Dark Matter & Trojan horses: A strategic design playbook' (Strelka Press, 2012) and 'Designing missions' (Vinnova, 2022).

[[{"fid":"15417","view_mode":"small","fields":{"format":"small","alignment":"left","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Anab Jain","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"small","alignment":"left","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Anab Jain","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"1258","width":"2000","class":"media-element file-small media-wysiwyg-align-left"}}]]Anab is a designer, futurist, filmmaker and educator. As Co-founder and Director of Superflux, she catalyses our Studio’s mission to leave a meaningful legacy for our planet and its future custodians.

Anab grew up in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India within the entangled postcolonial landscapes of a fast-growing nation. After studying filmmaking at the National Institute of Design she moved to London to gain her Masters at the Royal College of Art, and went on to work on machine intelligence at Microsoft Research, Cambridge. 

In 2009, Anab, with Jon Ardern, co-founded Superflux, a design, research and futures practice. Superflux work with businesses, cultural institutions, academic partners and government bodies to adapt and innovate through periods of uncertainty and change, and build more just futures. In our 15th year, Superflux has received theDesign Studio of the Year Award in recognition of our “contribution to the fields of speculative and futures design with a committed social mission.” 

Anab is a globally recognised thought leader renowned for her pioneering work on design-led foresight, emerging technologies, more-than human and ecological thinking. She has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the Arts, London, with the citation “A philosopher for our age, her concepts of ‘design for the new normal’ and ‘more-than-human centered design’ are expanding the public’s imagination, and making possible futures tangible.”

Over the years, Anab has is responsible for presenting key ideas to the world, such as Design for the New Normal (2012), More-than-Human-Centred Design (2018) and Ancillary Design (2022)

In 2022, Anab was awarded the prestigious ‘Royal Designers for Industry’ (RDI) Award, by UK’s Royal Society of Arts, in speculative design.  The title ‘Royal Designer for Industry’ (RDI) is the highest accolade for designers in the UK. Only 200 designers, who have achieved “sustained design excellence, work of aesthetic value and significant benefit to society” can hold the title.

Anab is also the recipient of the Award of Excellence ICSID, UNESCO Digital Arts Award, and Grand Prix Geneva Human Rights Festival, as well as awards from Apple and the UK Government’s Innovation Department. Her work has been exhibited at MoMA New York, V&A Museum, Science Gallery Dublin, National Museum of China, Vitra Design Museum, and Tate Modern.

Anab has delivered talks and keynotes at several conferences including TED, Skoll World Forum, Human Rights Watch, MIT Media Lab, NEXT, LIFT, Global Design Forum, and FuturEverything. Recent talks include Why We Need to Imagine Different Futures, More Than-Human Centered Design, Design for the New Normal, Valley of the Meatpuppets and How Will We Live. 

In addition, Anab serves as Professor of Design Investigations at the dieAngewandte, University of Applied Arts in Vienna since 2016. Her hope is to instil a culture of radical enquiry in her students, so they can become active designers-translators-catalysts for a complex and uncertain world.

[[{"fid":"15168","view_mode":"small","fields":{"format":"small","alignment":"left","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Rowan Conway","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"small","alignment":"left","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Rowan Conway","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"316","width":"320","class":"media-element file-small media-wysiwyg-align-left"}}]]Rowan is a Policy Fellow and Visiting Professor of Strategic Design, leading the Transformation by Design module of the MPA in Innovation, Public Policy and Public Valueat UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP). Between 2019-2022 she worked with Professor Mariana Mazzucato to lead the Mission Oriented Innovation Network (MOIN) at IIPP, convening global policy-making institutions such as the Scottish Government, the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova, the New Zealand Department for the Environment, the OECD, UNDP and the BBC in a range of exploratory design projects focused on mission-oriented innovation and public value creation. The strategic design methodology Rowan teaches is based on co-creation between policy actors (network partners) and academic researchers, and this “practice-based theorising” begins with defining and testing new ideas about economics and the broader political economy, then bringing them into real world contexts through live projects, experiments, and activities. Rowan is a practicing strategic designer, founder of the small studio practice Transformation by Design Ltd and a Non Executive Director at Live Work, a global service design agency with studios in London, Rotterdam and Sao Paulo, her focus in this role is particularly on Sustainable Futures.

Prior to joining UCL, Rowan was Director of Innovation at the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) where she set up the RSA Lab, an experimental space using design methods to explore, prototype and test research insights and policy ideas with government agencies, NGOs, academic partners, NHS Trusts, businesses and social enterprises. She designed and led a range of action research programmes on the future of work, deliberative democracy, tech and society, circular economy and systems innovation. Prior to that she has 15 years’ experience leading a wide range of design and engagement processes, notably the as part of the Design Team for London 2012 Olympic Park. Alongside this, she holds an MSc in Responsibility and Business Practice from the University of Bath and is a PhD Candidate at IIPP.

[[{"fid":"15473","view_mode":"small","fields":{"format":"small","alignment":"left","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Julie Hjort","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"small","alignment":"left","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Julie Hjort","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"3838","width":"2559","class":"media-element file-small media-wysiwyg-align-left"}}]]Julie drives DDC's work on sustainable transformation and is dedicated to accelerating the transition to a circular economy. She's passionate about mobilising cross-cutting and interdisciplinary collaborations to drive collective sustainable action. One of her latest projects is building DDC's mission to design an irresistible circular society in 2030. With 30 partners from the public and private sectors, academia, media, and funds, they defined 10 actions that we all have to take to realise the mission. Julie also continues to work and implement the overall mission in the other Green Transition projects at DDC.