Introducing fresh minds to aged care’s growing challenges

The aged care sector is increasingly struggling to keep pace. Largely funded by not-for-profits (NFPs) and with digitalisation and technological adoption typically minimal, the sector lacks the funds and the technology to enhance efficiency and sustain volunteer numbers.

GHD Digital’s D-Lab team recently brought this issue to an Innovation Challenge hosted by Swinburne University of Technology’s Design Factory Melbourne. The twelve-week challenge introduces a whole new set of interdisciplinary voices to explore this issue, with the students coming together to showcase their solutions in late October. Whilst the challenge is designed to inspire, motivate, and educate, it is simultaneously an exciting opportunity to bring fresh minds and diverse perspectives to a problem significantly impacting the sector.

The challenge is building off D-Lab’s recent research in the NFP sector - identifying market opportunities and exploring the mutually beneficial connections leverageable. With expertise in helping organisations think outside of the box, the D-Lab team wanted to introduced future designers, innovators, and entrepreneurs to the conversation.

“The initial session was about inspiring and motivating, starting with ‘How might we’ statements to really encourage collaborative thinking and open ideation,” shared Jacyl Shaw, Global Practice Director – D-Lab, GHD Digital. “We posed the conundrum to the students, and we were instantly excited by the conversations happening.”

The session was led in-person by Jacyl, with Dylan Vaughan-Jones (Graduate Consultant, D-Lab, GHD Digital), Brodie Wilcox (Graduate Consultant, D-Lab, GHD Digital), and Pete Robson (Experience Design Lead, D-Lab, GHD Digital) joining virtually.

“The Design Factory students took our How Might We statements and have been working through activities such as empathy interviewing and sector research to really get to the heart of the issue,” explained Pete Robson. “As with all design thinking projects, we have encouraged them to first fall in love with the actual problem before they start to come up with answers – in our experience, operating this way is how true innovative solutions are found.”

“Our Design units are about introducing real-world challenges to students and empowering them to learn-from-doing and co-create change,” shared Mel Calleja, Lecturer, Swinburne University of Technology.

Going forward, D-Lab will continue to support students virtually and in-person as they use the learnings from design thinking subjects to develop innovative solutions for the problems faced by the aged care industry.

Acerca de GHD

GHD es una empresa líder en servicios profesionales que opera en los mercados mundiales de agua, energía y recursos, medio ambiente, infraestructura y edificaciones, y transporte. Comprometidos con la visión de garantizar que el agua, la energía y las comunidades sean sostenibles para las futuras generaciones, GHD ofrece soluciones en consultoría, servicios digitales, ingeniería, arquitectura, medio ambiente y construcción a clientes del sector público y privado. Fundada en 1928 y propiedad de sus trabajadores, GHD cuenta con una red de más de 12.000 profesionales en más de 160 oficinas en cinco continentes.