Conference puts spotlight on connection between engineering and design

Themes of technology, engineering and the creative arts will intersect at DesTech 2016, The International Conference on Design and Technology, from 5 – 8 December at Deakin University’s Geelong Waurn Ponds Campus.

After successfully hosting the first DesTech last year, Deakin’s School of Engineering has joined forces with the University’s School of Communication and Creative Arts to run this year’s conference, being held at Deakin’s Centre for Advanced Design in Engineering Training (CADET).  

The conference aims to be a ‘multidisciplinary space where practitioners, academics and researchers explore and share the most recent advances in the interaction of design, engineering and technology’.

Professor Ian Gibson is the Interim Head of Deakin’s School of Engineering and the conference chair. He says this year DesTech is looking at three particular aspects of design: inclusion, innovation and interdisciplinary design.

Inclusion will investigate the design solutions that will make it possible to build inclusive societies and empower disadvantaged individuals. Innovation will look into groundbreaking ideas and the use of newly developed technologies to provide purposeful design solutions. Interdisciplinary design will aim to break down the barriers between engineering, arts and industrial design.

Keynote speakers for DesTech 2016 include:

• Professor Jennifer Loy, Program Leader for Industrial Design at Griffith University, Queensland, in the School of Engineering and Deputy Director of the Griffith Centre for Creative Arts Research.
• Dr Lionel T Dean, Creative Director at FutureFactories, Research Academic at De Montfort University, United Kingdom.
• Professor Don Ryun Chang, Dean of the Graduate School of Advertising PR and Professor of the Visual Communications Department at Hongik University in Seoul.
• Professor Nicole Rinehart, Director of the Deakin Child Centre and Director of Clinical and Community Partnerships at Deakin University, Honorary Research Fellow at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, and Adjunct Professor of Clinical Psychology at Monash University.
• Professor Marc Aurel Schnabel, Architect and Professor in Architectural Technology, School of Architecture, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
• Professor Paulo Bartolo, Chair of Advanced Manufacturing, School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, The University of Manchester.

To find out more about the conference visit the DesTech 2016 website.