Program director Andrew McWilliams and Synthetic Media resident Nouf Aljowaysir presented at the virtual Rethink Italy Service Design Festival this summer.

The live-streamed discussion, now available on YouTube, addresses a Service Design audience with ideas on how art-based technology research informs designers examining a changing social landscape over time. The event showcases cross-collaborative programs by Thoughtworks Arts involving artists and technologists, and how those interactions drive questions about society, and harness technological innovation.

To illustrate the power of this type of resaerch, arts resident Nouf Aljowaysir shared her work investigating the social impacts of artificial intelligence, and her work as a creative technologist at Havas, in New York.

The discussion was hosted by festival organizers business and innovation journalist Guido Romeo, and Thoughtworks technology principal Alessandro Confetti who were motivated to explore lessons learned from the COVID-19 outbreak around innovation, through discussions about collaboration and industry.

ReThink Italy Festival has been celebrating discussions around design, art and innovation since 2017. The festival this year was organized to function entirely online - all four days of the festival were programed with live-streamed discussions to enable engagement, both on approaches to emerging technologies and how collaboration helps us innovate today.