(displays on homepage and search page)
Back to SearchTo design cities of tomorrow, we need to harness the passion of young professionals who are unconstrained by the status quo, according to Claire Dixon from the Smart Seeds Program at GHD Digital.
Drawing on extensive experience in idea generation, capacity building and delivery, Claire will chair a session on digital disruption and urban infrastructure at Pause Fest, the annual creative, tech and business conference in Melbourne.
“Both Pause Fest and Smart Seeds are all about collaboration, looking over the horizon, and applying fresh thinking to tackle problems, providing the ideal environment to foster innovation,” Claire says.
Claire has played a key role in growing Smart Seeds from humble beginnings as an internal graduate development activity into an annual global innovation program for young talent.
This distinctive program brings together young professionals and experienced mentors from a variety of organisations to collaborate across disciplines to develop innovation skills and tackle complex infrastructure challenges facing each city.
In 2018, Smart Seeds is bigger than ever running across Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. The program is made possible through the support of industry partners in each city.
How does Smart Seeds help shape cities?
The beautiful thing about redesigning cities is that we are all users. Often we know them intimately, so coming up with inspiration for solutions is sometimes just a matter of looking around, being present, and opening your mind to new possibilities.
One of the ways Smart Seeds is making this possible is through bringing together professionals to focus on problem-solving outside the boundaries of their organisation and their discipline. Something that’s completely normal in one sector might be revolutionary in another. Making those connections can be transformational.
Digital technologies offer a huge range of tools for crafting solutions to benefit communities, but they also mean that incremental change is no longer sufficient. There is an added urgency to move beyond the mindset of a single discipline or company and consider a wider range of ideas and opportunities.
How does Smart Seeds nurture creative minds?
Taking a strengths-based team approach to problem solving, Smart Seeds participants learn practical skills for innovation and influencing change by applying a framework to explore a real-life infrastructure challenge. With guidance from mentors, each team develops, tests and refines potential solutions, and pitches their idea to an industry audience.
Beyond the learning experience, Smarts Seeds helps participants develop networks with peers from other sectors as well as more experienced industry mentors. These relationships are potentially life- and career-changing.
Smart Seeds supports a change in mindset and culture towards resilience and optimism. This breeds creative confidence, empathy, embracing ambiguity, a ‘make it’ mindset for a more innovative industry. Nurturing fresh creative thinking plays a role in how our engineering, architecture and environmental solutions impact future cities.