Project name
The Human Collaboration Project
Atlassian X UTS
Client
Design Thinking | Futures Thinking
Responsibilities
Nov '21
Project duration
CONTEXT
The brief provided by Atlasssian and UTS Innovation & Entrepreneurship Unit was “In the context of Sydney 2050, what might a uniquely Australian sustainable and inclusive technology and innovation precinct feel like?” . The output of this project was a workshop entitled 'The Human Collaboration Project'.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
It is predicted that by 2030, as many as 375 million workers globally will require training to meet the skills gap that automation, digitisation and the advancement of artificial intelligence will create to in turn empower employee productivity (McKinsey Global Institute 2018). But what if this prediction was not entirely accurate? What has been forgotten here?
As part of a futures thinking elective, I worked with a transdisciplinary team to research and design an interactive experience around this question. Through probing methods, such as mapping all the possible networks, identifying stakeholders, and examining the push/pull factors that underpin contemporary innovation, we were enabled to identify “productivity” and “social interaction”, as our key themes. My particular focus question within this pertained to “How can we leverage insights from the Internet of Things (IoT) and “smart offices” to inform productive ways of working in 2050?”.
This project received a High Distinction (85-100%) and was selected to be presented to Atlassian.
SOLUTION
Drawing on our findings, our presentation played on the idea of the IoT assuming control over the workplace and pervading daily life to the extent that it would require a government intervention that responded to the lack of human collaboration and empathy occurring as a result. Our imagined experiential future aims to provoke questions about how the future of work must be reframed to prioritise both productivity and social interaction.
How desirable is a future that would favour productivity over human social interaction? If a focus on tech progression remains, it may be a matter of equipping workers not with new skills to meet the tech knowledge gap, but rather human skills of empathy and emotional connection that have been forgotten.
Our experiential future takes place in 2050 and reflects a 10-minute segment of one of the Human Collaboration Project sessions that occurs at the start of each year for employees of Tech Central. The Human Collaboration Project has been run for the past five years since 2045. Our experiential future is an immersive sensory experience demonstrating a variety of activities that aim to improve human-to-human social interaction for the re-birth of effective collaboration.
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