News

'Design thinking' taking hold in Australian business sector: ABC news headline 

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Design & Innovation Consultants

About Key Designers

John M White

John M White

Founder + Design Director

Initially trained at the highly regarded RMIT School of Architecture and Design, John has over 20 years of professional design experience.  Having worked for various multi national design firms, he was responsible for delivering high quality residential, commercial and tourism projects around the globe, including 2-years on-site with a design and implementation project for the Brunei Royal Family.

John's talent for quick conceptual ideas and sketch-based communication brings an engaging energy and rapid insight to any project.  His construction knowledge, understanding of resources and materials, and a focus on user experience brings a sense of certainty and confidence to the 'construction' final products, places and events.

In establishing kwokka, John's vision was for a company that evolved from a wider base of practice and could meet the increasingly complex global, social, and business innovation challenges outside the power of any single traditional design field.

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Nicola D Smith

Nicola D Smith

Co-Founder + Anthro-Designer

Nicola is an award winning UK trained design professional with extensive experience in residential, commercial, environmental, health and tourism sectors, having worked on extended cross-cultural contracts in Africa, Europe, Central America and Asia.  As well as graduating in design from Greenwich University in London, Nicola has post-graduate qualifications from Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, including a PhD in Architecture + Design, and Graduate Certificate in Research Commercialization, Entrepreneurship + Global Sustainability.

At kwokka Nicola is extensively involved in research projects focused on incorporating design anthropology, co-creation, user experience, participatory innovation and transformative design into practice-based projects.

Highly imaginative and innovative, Nicola balances inventiveness with strong project management, documentation and organizational skills, with particular emphasis on achieving and maintaining exceptional standards of client service and project deliverables including design packages, development reports and resource planning.

Nicola presents at national and international conferences in relation to both design research and professional practice, and is also engaged in a wide range of written project work and teaching at tertiary level.

You can view the Academia.com profile for Dr Nicola D Smith here.

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