From AI and immersive technology to interactive gaming, virtual reality and the future of innovation, explore where design and technology meet across Festival of Design Aotearoa.
Design has always been shaped by the tools available to us and by people willing to imagine what those tools might make possible.
Across Festival of Design Aotearoa, a collection of talks, workshops and experiences explores the increasingly fluid space between design and technology. From AI and augmented reality to interactive entertainment and future-focused conversations, these events ask not only what can technology do? but what do we want to do with it?
Whether you work in design or tech, run a business, make things, have an idea you want to develop or are simply curious about what comes next there’s plenty here to plug into.
A day of design + tech at Hive HQ
On Tuesday 20 October, Hive HQ and Whanganui Tech Network bring together four events spanning big-picture thinking, hands-on experimentation and opportunities to connect.
Beyond Boundaries: Technology, Design and the Future of Innovation opens up a conversation about what happens when technology and design collide and the possibilities that emerge when we stop thinking about them as separate disciplines.
AR / VR Creative Technology Workshop takes that thinking into practice, offering an opportunity to explore augmented and virtual reality and the creative possibilities of immersive technologies.
Then Whanganui 2030: What Happened? Workshop turns the lens towards the city itself, inviting participants to think forward and imagine the decisions, innovations and ideas that could shape Whanganui over the coming years.
Round out the day with the Design Tech Networking Function, bringing designers, technologists, entrepreneurs, innovators and curious minds together to meet, exchange ideas and make new connections.
All four take place at Hive HQ, 120 Victoria Avenue, Whanganui a tech and innovation incubator and startup hub supporting founders and emerging businesses.
AI, algorithms and creative possibility
Artificial intelligence is changing the tools available to designers and creators but the more interesting questions may be about what we choose to make with them.
In Palmerston North, Designing Wonder: AI, Algorithms and the Future of Children’s Content looks at the intersection of creativity, technology and childhood.
It’s a chance to consider how emerging technologies are influencing the stories and experiences we create, and what that might mean for the next generation of audiences. The event takes place on 24 October.
When the audience becomes part of the experience
Technology isn’t only changing how things are designed it is changing how we participate in them.
Extra Lives: Interactive Video Game Concert brings gaming, live performance and interactive technology together, turning the familiar relationship between performer and audience on its head.
Rather than simply watching, audiences become part of what unfolds an example of how digital technology can create entirely new forms of shared experience.
21 October, Whanganui.
Designing what comes next
And if you want to zoom right out, Designing Tomorrow Summit brings together ideas about the role design can play in shaping the future.
Across 16–17 October in Whanganui, the Summit opens the Festival with two days of future-facing thinking: a fitting starting point for anyone interested in how design, technology, creativity and innovation can respond to the opportunities and challenges ahead.
Curious is enough
You don’t need to work in tech to be part of these conversations.
Come to learn something new, try a technology you haven’t used before, hear where other people think things are heading, meet someone working on an interesting idea or bring one of your own!
Explore design, technology and the ideas shaping what comes next across Festival of Design Aotearoa, 16–25 October.