Impact Talks at UTS

How do we design cities that are both sustainable and deeply liveable? Christian Bason, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor at the University of Technology Sydney and one of Europe’s leading voices in public sector innovation, brings a unique perspective to this question.

Drawing on his research in design for societal challenges and his leadership roles in government and civic innovation, Bason explores how design can be a driver of syst...

What does it mean to be “alive” in an age of automation, synthetic biology, and artificial environments?

How do artistic practices challenge dominant narratives about life, nature, and control?

And if compost, tissue culture, and data can form a new cycle of life, what might that say about our future?

In this thought-provoking episode, artist and researcher Ionat Zurr delivers a keynote that traverses three decades of collaborative bi...

What happens when we break the silence around colonial history? How does acknowledging the past help us heal and connect across communities? And who carries the responsibility for truth-telling—First Nations peoples or non-Indigenous Australians?

Through deeply personal reflections and bold insights, Lorena Allam, Kate Grenville, Lindon Coombes, Mariko Smith, and moderator Robynne Quiggin unpack the emotional, political, and cultur...

How can we envision trans futures? What does trans flourishing look like?

What are the radical challenges to trans and gender diverse rights?

And what are the joys, curiosities and possibilities of social justice focused research and truly inclusive futures?

After some decades of progress, western governments are now reversing or threatening to reverse the legal rights and recognition of trans and gender diverse people.

In this contex...

How did Australia's first family violence refuge come about?

How has the depoliticisation of the domestic violence movement affected outcomes for women and children?

While we now understand that domestic and family violence is more than physical violence, how do we continue to recognise and not turn away from the very real physical violence that Aboriginal women experience?

What would take to build services that both prevent and resp...

What if your right to a secure home was protected by law?

Why is Australia one of the only liberal democracies without housing rights protection?

Could a Human Rights Act help fix Australia’s housing crisis?

Everyone should have a safe, secure and healthy place to call home, regardless of your postcode or bank balance. But this is not the reality for far too many people in the community.

A new report on the right to housing commissione...

How will AI really shape our everyday lives?

Is AI just a cover for data theft and surveillance capitalism?

Are we on the brink of machines outsmarting us at everything?

Keynote speaker

Professor Emily M. Bender is the co-author of The AI Con: How To Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want. She was featured in TIME100's inaugural list of most influential people in AI in 2023, and is a Professor of Linguistics at th...

Is the finance sector equipped for the transition to net zero?

What are the origins of ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) and what is its role today?

What is 'responsible investment' in a rapidly changing world?

How can building skills across the sector drive change?

Keynote speaker

Paul Clements-Hunt is the former head of the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative, and coined the term ESG.

Panellists<...

What stories does America tell itself - and who do they serve? In this episode of Impact Talks, we launch the 2025 Vice-Chancellor’s Democracy Forum with acclaimed historian, author and cultural critic Sarah Churchwell. In her thought-provoking lecture, Sarah explores the national myths that have shaped the United States. She examines how narratives of freedom and opportunity often conceal histories of exclusion, inequality, and di...

What’s in a name? In a vibrant, multicultural society like Australia, names hold deep personal, cultural, and historical meaning.

Yet too often, non-Anglo names are mispronounced, altered, or avoided—reflecting lingering colonial legacies and contributing to the marginalisation of diverse identities in workplaces, schools, and community life.

In this panel discussion, community voices, academics, and thought leaders explore how...

What do you need to know to prosper as a people for 65,000 years or more?

Alison Page is really obsessed with training up a new generation of Aboriginal designers and that’s been a driving force behind her book, Design and Building on Country: First Knowledges for Younger Readers, co-authored with anthropologist and architect Paul Memmott.

It’s a rework of Design and Building on Country, published in 2021 as part of Thames & Huds...

How do you build successful businesses while creating meaningful impact?

How can companies foster inclusive cultures during periods of growth?

Panelists share their journeys and offer insights on navigating the complexities of entrepreneurship, advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion and responding to current societal shifts.

Speakers

Famey Williams (Githabul), Chief Executive, Aboriginal Housing Office. Fa...

Kidfluencers are social media influencers with accounts managed by adults.

This global trend casts children as brand ambassadors but with their ‘everyday life’ as the show. 

• What's the risk of harm to kid influencers?
• Can children consent to their private life being readily available online?
• How do we draw the line between play and labour?
• What is 'playbour'?
• When a guardian controls the 'talent', how do children access income?
• ...

For the first time, a new report quantifies the employment and educational impacts of domestic violence on Australian women.

Professor Anne Summers AO’s new report, The Cost of domestic violence to women’s employment and education, quantifies the financial impact on women for the first time.

This report builds on her groundbreaking previous report, The Choice: Violence or Poverty.

Professor Summers presented the grim findings that sho...

Australians must change how we consume goods and services to reduce our environmental impact, but what can businesses do when consumers resist change? How can companies encourage more sustainable behavior while decarbonizing supply chains?

In this episode of Impact Talks at UTS, a panel of experts explores the challenges organizations face in driving this shift.

Speakers

Catherine King is the Chief Strategy Officer at Leo Bur...

Change for Good at UTS means a transdisciplinary, strategic, systems-thinking approach, combining critical, participatory, and multi-level strategies to create practical solutions for addressing complex health and social issues.

In this episode of Impact Talks at UTS, the UTS Business School launches its new centre Change for Good with an expert panel discussion addressing the question:

What are the biggest behaviour and social chang...

Anna Funder, award-winning writer and author of Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life, unpacks how the patriarchy continues to maintain the status quo – using the extraordinary lives of Eileen O’Shaughnessy and George Orwell, and her thoughts on the 2023 hit movie Barbie.

In a patriarchal system, women’s relationships transform into a role – Mother. Wife. – that erases their individuality and signs them up to a motherload of unpaid l...

How do organisations identify and enact purpose?

How can we drive connection between personal and organisational purpose, meaning and values?

And how important are these issues in navigating an increasingly complex world?

Dr Suzy Green and Dr Rosemary Sainty pose these questions and more to Professor Emeritus Robert E. Quinn, Professor Carl Rhodes and Corene Strauss in a conversation about purpose, meaning and values to inspir...

This year, Australia is set to establish the role of a Poet Laureate, as part of the federal government’s Revive national cultural policy.

What is the relationship between poetry and the public realm—from bards to court poets to laureates?

How will a poet laureateship help shape the reception of Australian poetry at home and abroad?

Professor Holland-Batt talks to these questions, followed by a Q&A session led by...