The way we learn, teach, communicate and live has been disrupted, and now more than ever we see the importance of creative-problem solving in ensuring we build towards a sustainable and better future of learning and working.

The projects our students have been working with various industry partners this semester showcase how they are applying and harnessing design-led approaches and creativity, to make an impact to our communities and society at large.

We are sure many of us have found and built a new resilience and capability to adapt in the past few months. This certainly has been true to our students, working in interdisciplinary teams together with industry partners on complex societal, environmental and business challenges.

Over the past semester, our students have shown tremendous resilience, creativity and ingenuity and we wholeheartedly want to commend them on that!

Our Global Programs, where Zoom calls and remote collaboration has always been the norm, wrapped up with online showcases: The first-ever CBI A3 Online Exhibition & Showcase in May and the SUGAR Cloud EXPO in June. The PdP program showcase will take place later this year. The projects included:

• Our CBI A3 team tackled UN SDG #3: Good Health and Wellbeing with advanced CERN Technology with our friends from the DFGN at IdeaSqaure CERN, inno.space Mannheim, and New York City Design Factory. Team ASE’s solution explored innovative ways to protect our airport from illicit substances and bio threats.
• SUGAR team worked with Takeda Pharmaceuticals and students from Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany to help people with narcolepsy manage their condition. They developed Habitual to empower people with narcolepsy to understand their condition, manage their lifestyle and participate in society on their terms.
• Yanmar has been a partner in SUGAR in multiple years before, and this year students developed an autonomous vehicle that collects data/information about crops on remote farms. Working together with students from Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan to help farmers working in distributed agriculture.
• NKC Nakanishi Metal Co. partnered in SUGAR for the first time, and our students, together with students from Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan, tackled product development utalising micro-cooling technology and looked to impact the hospitality sector and hotel energy consumption.
• In the PdP program, our Occupational Therapy students teamed with engineers, designers and business students at Aalto University in Finland, to envision new market applications using graphene in collaboration with industry partner, Imagine Intelligent Materials. The team proposed an integrated mattress and software developed for aged care facilities to improve the quality of life, reduce costs and improve patient care through data.

Our local programs kicked off with Occupational Therapy and Design students tackling inclusive design challenges ahead of the next iteration of TOM@Univeristy next semester.

Collaboration with ANSTO continued to grow with a project on improving radiotherapy experience and screening for breast cancer patients, and explored the value of design approaches in science and technology. The team designed a garment that improves breast cancer patient’s experience and aids in the screening process.

As part of Swinburne’s School of Design’s 1.5 degree sustainability initiative, our Innovation Challenge Project students worked with the Boroondara City Council to push the boundaries of the their Glenferrie Road Placemaking project – with some great results and varying concepts to improve sense of community, wayfinding and environmental awareness. Students in our research-driven unit Industry Engagement & The Problem Solving Space worked on sustainability practices together with industry perspectives from ASPIRE.

Congratulations again to all our resilient, creative, capable and innovative students for creating such outstanding outcomes and showcasing tremendous capability in remote collaboration!