Igniter of curiosity, keynote speaker, award-winning designer, Certified Facilitator of LEGO® Serious Play®, tech & innovation columnist
We live in an age where tomorrow’s waves are undeniably crashing today.
Innovation is happening every second and emerging technology is evolving with higher speed, capacity and processing power than what’s possible for any human being. And while technology is driving the change, counter-intuitively it is not where our focus should be. The organisations who will succeed in the digital age will do so by decoding what is innately human; curious intelligence.
Dr. Kate Raynes-Goldie is a master of curiosity. After all, curiosity is a superpower in a world where disruption is the new normal. Those who are curious will adapt and thrive — lean into new possibilities, new pathways and new paradigms of thinking. Curious minds are primed to navigate change and to ignite new perspectives.
Kate has always been a curious pioneer with a fascination for a future yet to exist. When she was just 22 and while still an undergraduate at the University of Toronto, she began presenting and publishing her ground breaking research, including the earliest work on friendship on social media and internet memes… long before anyone knew what these things were. This future focussed theme continued when from 2007 onwards when Kate began a PhD in Internet Studies Curtin University in Western Australia. Her PhD on Facebook and privacy is in Curtin University’s top ten most downloaded list since it was published in 2012 and paved the way for Kate to become the globally recognised digital pioneer she is today.
Since 2007, Kate has been making immersive reality games and ‘escape rooms’ converging virtual and physical worlds to ignite human transformations. These games have been played on a global scale including at the National Theatre (London), Toronto International Film Festival and IndieCade (San Francisco). As a games expert, Kate has observed the ways in which human transformations occur in dual environments (the digital and real-world). Today, Kate assists leaders to navigate the influence of digitisation with a focus on the human transformation required to succeed in the next economy.
As a globally recognised industry leader, Kate has been the recipient of numerous international awards, including the Design Exchange’s Digifest New Voice Award, the Australian Computer Society’s Digital Disruptor ICT Professional of the Year, one of the top women in the games industry in Australia and New Zealand for three years running. Kate has spoken at conferences around the globe, including SXSW (Austin), NXNE (Toronto), REMIX Academy, Pecha Kucha, PAX AUS and TEDxPerth. She has also been a judge, coach or mentor for a variety of incubators, accelerators and hackathons, including the NASA Space Apps Challenge and Startup Weekend.
Today, Kate is a speaker, designer, innovation columnist, researcher, podcast host and a passionate creator of curious environments. She is a Producer of XR:WA, Australia’s largest immersive reality (VR/AR/MR) conference series which ran for the first time in 2019. She’s a Certified Facilitator of LEGO® Serious Play®, a methodology that boosts innovation, creativity and curiosity used by global brands such as IKEA, Virgin and Samsung.
As a speaker, Kate’s energy is playful and infectious and her content is in-depth and grounded in research. She ignites a curious journey for the audience acting as a virtual shaman who translates the mysterious world of VR, artificial intelligence, and big data to empower people with the insight to balance these technologies with a deeper self awareness of what it means to be human in the new age of innovation.