New Festival Focused on Human Centred Design

Announcing a New Festival Focused on Human Centred Design: Mindset of Design (MOD) Wellington

It is a little cliche to say that technology is a big, inescapable part of modern life. Stats NZ data shows that published software in this country is increasing significantly year on year, while IT services are in decline. MOD Wellington wants to put the requirements of real people back at the centre of design. Readily available technology and accessible development tools have created an environment where productisation is rife and there’s an app for everything, including a literal app for nothing, or for milking a virtual cow.

The question must be asked: is this influx of digital stimulation serving us humans, the people behind the smartphone? Technology can do amazing things and can and should be embraced. That being said, solutions are for people, not machines. We need to be embedding a mindset of human centricity into the things we create - we need to adopt a Mindset of Design.

MOD Wellington is a week-long festival featuring a variety of events held around the Wellington region. Our goal is to inspire, empower and enable our community to tackle products, services and solutions with people at the centre. In the first week of November 2019, Wellington will be transformed and its inhabitants will have their eyes unclouded to the mysteries, the art and the strategy that underpins all good design.

With a week of collaborative learning experiences, MOD Wellington is fostering the growth of the New Zealand innovation ecosystem by providing innovators with the tools to enable and improve practices. It will foster meaningful, inclusive and holistic solutions as well as providing opportunities for providers and participants to connect and collaborate. From immersive workshops to experience-based learning events this is a festival designed by the people, for the people and there will be a fantastic experience for each and every human.

This is not just an event for designers. MOD concentrates on the human, cultural and social aspects that go into creating solutions based on the needs of people. It celebrates collaboration, human-centred design, empathy-based co-design and customer-centricity.

MOD Wellington first took place under the banner of Experience Week in 2018. The week featured 27 events with 300 attendees. MOD Wellington Event Manager Emily Dwyer said that the 2018 event demonstrated the demand for an event of this nature.

“MOD is about creating space to cover the human and social aspects of solutions to address challenges and opportunities in a holistic, inclusive and lasting way, designed around the needs of humans and the context in which those needs occur.”

MOD Wellington is built on three core principles that capture the spirit of the Mindset of Design:

• Empower, enable and educate through inspiring events, experiential learning and immersive workshops, MOD will create learning experiences for participants and introduce new approaches, tools and insights for self- or team-development.

• Engage audiences around a common theme, to learn from and build with them, MOD looks to connect the ecosystem and next generation of businesses, innovators and leaders in New Zealand.

• Promote interaction and action-oriented learning, hands-on, real problem solving on real opportunities or issues in our businesses, cities, regions and our country.

The festival is a collaborative effort between Creative HQ, Openfield and Springload. For the partners, what makes this festival so exciting is the potential to change the way that we think about design as a nation:

"MOD is about purpose driven innovation. We believe the key to addressing any problem or opportunity is to develop a deep understanding of the situation from a customer or citizen perspective first. Ultimately, it is people who make our world a better place. We are sponsoring this festival to drive the collective intelligence of the NZ people toward championing Indigenous rights and better understanding traditional Indigenous ways of knowing and being, while creating movements of change around the climate crisis and inclusive education.”

For more information and for bookings please refer to the MOD Wellington website. https://modwellington.com/

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