IXDA Brisbane 2023 International Womens Day Event

IXDA Brisbane is back for 2023 with a bang and supporting, advocating and celebrating women for International Women's Day. 

We are so excited to continue our partnership with Skedulo, using their wonderful event space and providing drinks and would like to welcome a new sponsor to the IXDA Brisbane family, Halcyon Knights, who are very happy to support our design community and buy everyone a drink or two at The Prince Consort after this event!

For International Women's day we thought, wouldn't it be great to have an international woman as our keynote speaker....so to kick off  we'd like to welcome Kristina Eickler, Global Vice President of Digital Partner at Adidas. 

For the second half of our event, we have a diverse panel of leaders from across industry discussing a variety of topics in and around International Women's Day and giving their opinions of how technology is supporting gender equality. 

Key note speaker; 

Kristina Eickler, Global Vice President of Digital Partner at Adidas

Kristina is the Global Vice President of Digital Partner (B2B2C) commerce with the ambition of growing the adidas digital wholesale business to 45% of total Wholesale. As a leader of a global multi-national team, she brings her wealth of experience across multiple sectors including Digital Strategy & Transformation, Global Operations and Finance. Her work assignments span the globe, including Europe, Hong Kong, and the United States.

Kristina is passionate about purpose driven leadership. Her values include authenticity, trust and inclusion. She is energized by a global and diverse environment. 

A few fun stats about Kristina:  

1. She has lived in 4 countries (Germany, Spain, US, HKG)
2. She has been with adidas for 16 years, worked in 4 functions
3. speaks 2 ½ languages 
4. Has 2 very active boys (6&10)

Kristina will be speaking live from Germany, talking about her career, what she's experienced at a global brand and what she's learnt as a female leader. There will also be a live Q&A with the audience!

Our Panel; 

Urusaro (Trisha) Raaguju; Design Strategist @ Spur

Trisha is a multi-talented professional with a diverse background in design strategy, physical sciences, project management, and creative arts. With a keen eye for creative problem-solving, Trisha is passionate about utilising storytelling, human-centred design, representation, and empathetic cultural exchange to help solve complex social problems.

She has worked across a range of fields and roles in her career - starting out as a geological/environmental chemist, progressing to social impact, innovation, and community development, and also as an established vocalist, songwriter, and creative producer.

Currently, Trisha is focused on her work as a design strategist at spur:, where she is leading a million-dollar Google org-funded initiative called Sticks & Stones that is using technology and design to address harmful speech online; and as a performing artist having recently released her first solo project and as a flautist and main singer for QMA award-winning Matt Hsu's Obscure Orchestra."

Jen Seevinck; Associate Professor @ QUT 

Jen Seevinck, PhD is an electronic artist who uses interaction design methods to create digital, interactive art systems and visualisations. Her practice is driven by conceptual questioning and design research into open-ended and participatory audience experience.
Jen has been active in the electronic arts and research space for over 20 years. She collaborates with creatives, health practitioners, scientists and professionals in the environmental and citizen sciences; her designs have won international awards and been exhibited at contemporary art galleries and conferences in Venice, Beijing, Tokyo, across Australia and in the U.S.A.
She has over 50 research outcomes and articles including the monograph ‘Emergence in Interactive Art’.

Currently Jen is Associate Professor in Interaction Design and Visual Communication at Queensland University of Technology, a chief investigator in the QUT Design Lab, leading the 2023 initiatives in the QUT More Than Human Futures research group, and as a committee member of Queensland chapter committee for Australian Citizen Science Association, leading innovation in science communication. Previous positions include Visiting Scientist at Data 61, CSIRO, Artist-in-Residence in Science with Queensland Government, and Research Scientist at the Virginia Modelling Analysis Simulation Centre, USA.

Paul Ciappara; Senior Director user Research & Customer Insight @ Skedulo

Paul focuses on strategic user research initiatives working for the Brisbane based Startup, Skedulo. He specialises in employing user-centred design methodologies to solve complex customer and business challenges.

He has been involved in all phases of the Design and Innovation process including the planning and conducting of user research, one-on-one interviews, Persona development and contextual inquiries, right through to usability testing and product strategy. Working closely with Product Owners, Designers, Developers and Testers to deliver high-quality digital projects, working in traditional and agile teams with onshore and offshore resources.
Paul has also been involved in the development of Digital Strategies for a number of iconic Australian brands and is passionate about helping organisations achieve growth and maximise operational efficiency through the use of digital technologies.

Kim McGuire; Lead Service Designer & Researcher @ Nutrien Ag Solutions 

Kim McGuire (she/her) leads the first team of Service Designers and Researchers in Australia's largest agricultural product and service provider. She is a woman in a heavily male-dominated industry, where gender roles are entrenched... but changing.

For 15 years, Kim has worked across industries with varying levels of inclusion and innovation maturity - banking, airline, retail and more - to finally land in a space where innovation and gender have become active priorities.

Without inclusion and innovation, she believes that agriculture as we know it won't survive and it forms a critical enabler, therefore, of our food supply.

This event is focusing on International Womens Day but we welcome everyone regardless of how you identify. 

(Please be advised we do not record or broadcast our events as we want to focus on building a community and bringing people together in person)

We're looking forward to more great connections, conversations and interactions so see you all there!!

The lift in the building will close at 5.30pm but we will leave a note with a number to call for anyone that arrives late and needs access.