What kind of event brings together a health minister, leading academics, and c-suite executives from across the private sector? This may not sound like your everyday gathering of professionals, however at Design Factory Melbourne this is our everyday — it’s what’s known as interdisciplinary collaboration.
When my friends ask me what I did in the Design Factory Melbourne (DFM) Global Program, I have a bit of a hard time putting exactly what does happen at DFM into words.
For 7 days in April our global team, working with Innospring, travelled to their partner university in Nantong, China, for an intensive week working with their team to speed their project along. The Innospring team have been tasked with exploring opportunities for developing services for smart buildings in China. Aaron Down, studying his BA Honours with DFM, shares a day in the life of his time there.
How would you work collaboratively to design a solution, service or product if your team worked across different countries? This is the challenge that Global Program students at DFM are facing. International visits from team members have benefits for this challenging working relationship.
Fiona Triaca, a former arts student turned stockbroker turned creative entrepreneur, helps people within organisations to bring ideas to life and to find more meaning in their work. Through her company Naked Ambition – co-founded with Erica Liston – Fiona helps people build their personal brands and bring more creativity into their workplace.
Currently based in Berlin, former Design Factory Melbourne (DFM) graduate Adam Cochrane is now happily working as service designer for Japanese design company, GoodPatch. But Adam’s DFM journey has also taken him through some of the world’s leading design hubs from Finland, to Tokyo, to Germany.