In this interactive workshop sprint, immerse yourself in the 5-step Human-Centered AI methodology, a fresh approach to AI design thinking. Learn to uncover AI-enabled opportunities for your organization, merge user needs with data, generate AI-focused design solutions, and forge ethical AI applications. Utilize our AI Design toolkit and AI Design cards to ideate Human-Centered AI solutions and walk away with a tangible AI MVP, honed by our distinctive Human-Centered AI methodology. Enhance your critical thinking by evaluating AI’s impact on society, focusing on ethical issues and social responsibilities.

Sarah is the Founder and CEO of Formatif, an AI-enabled venture design studio for emerging technology startups. Through AI design workshops and initiatives, she advocates Human-Centered AI Innovation for emerging technology startups. From designing AI-driven products for Silicon Valley startups, venture investments in B2B startups, and crafting organizational design strategies for MNCs – Sarah’s unconventional design entrepreneurship journey has always revolved around blending business, tech, and design to lead innovative transformations in complex tech sectors. Her experiences include working in Venture Capital investments in the Bay Area, driving innovation consulting in corporates like Philips and Gensler, to working with emerging technology startups in Web 3.0 and AI to design and launch human-centered products. A significant highlight was her yearlong collaboration with AI Singapore, where she developed the Human-Centered AI (HCAI) design methodology and toolkit, revolutionizing AI product innovation with an ethical focus.

Join me for an immersive workshop where you’ll dive into the world of AI design toolkits. This workshop will equip you with the knowledge and skills to apply practical toolkits across various AI domains, such as human-AI experience, responsible AI and more. By the end of this workshop, you’ll have a solid foundation in AI design principles, practical experience with leading AI toolkits, and the confidence to design and develop AI products and services.

Josephine is a product manager for customized product solutions at Microsoft. As a product manager, she is responsible for overseeing the discovery and delivery work for implementing disruptive technologies and turning these into customized product solutions. Her primary goal is to ensure the final solution delivers user value, is usable, feasible and viable for the business. In addition to her role at Microsoft, Josephine also hosts The Design Strategy Podcast and is a guest speaker for events and education. Outside of work, Josephine enjoys strolling around her home city Amsterdam, hiphop dance and visiting impressionist art museums.

In this interactive workshop sprint, immerse yourself in the 5-step Human-Centered AI methodology, a fresh approach to AI design thinking. Learn to uncover AI-enabled opportunities for your organization, merge user needs with data, generate AI-focused design solutions, and forge ethical AI applications. Utilize our AI Design toolkit and AI Design cards to ideate Human-Centered AI solutions and walk away with a tangible AI MVP, honed by our distinctive Human-Centered AI methodology. Enhance your critical thinking by evaluating AI’s impact on society, focusing on ethical issues and social responsibilities.

Sarah is the Founder and CEO of Formatif, an AI-enabled venture design studio for emerging technology startups. Through AI design workshops and initiatives, she advocates Human-Centered AI Innovation for emerging technology startups. From designing AI-driven products for Silicon Valley startups, venture investments in B2B startups, and crafting organizational design strategies for MNCs – Sarah’s unconventional design entrepreneurship journey has always revolved around blending business, tech, and design to lead innovative transformations in complex tech sectors. Her experiences include working in Venture Capital investments in the Bay Area, driving innovation consulting in corporates like Philips and Gensler, to working with emerging technology startups in Web 3.0 and AI to design and launch human-centered products. A significant highlight was her yearlong collaboration with AI Singapore, where she developed the Human-Centered AI (HCAI) design methodology and toolkit, revolutionizing AI product innovation with an ethical focus.

Craft groundbreaking solutions and ignite market success in this dynamic half-day workshop.

Go beyond brainstorming! We'll guide you through a proven customer-centric innovation process, from pinpointing critical customer needs to crafting winning solutions. Through years of experience in the innovation space, we have combined the best tools and methods and developed this step-by-step Innovation Playbook.

Deep-dive into:
- Unearthing customer challenges: Learn to connect with your audience and identify the problems that truly matter.
- Rapid idea generation: Unleash a creative storm and refine solutions for desirability, feasibility, and viability.
- Market mastery: Develop strategies to captivate your audience and drive product adoption.
- Get hands-on: Through interactive exercises and expert guidance, gain first-hand experience in a systematic approach to innovation.

This workshop is for YOU if you're:
- An innovator or product manager looking for fresh perspectives.
- A strategist or entrepreneur seeking a customer-centric edge.
- A product designer or researcher looking to perfect your game.
- Don't miss this opportunity to transform your innovation game!

As Head of UX at CarePay, Eva drives the user experience for the company's SAAS platform, linking millions of people to health insurers and healthcare providers. Her expertise lies in integrating UX seamlessly within business and technology, to form winning product strategies and help guide innovation projects to diversify CarePay's solutions.

She discovered her passion for customer-centric innovation as a UX consultant, while at Xebia, working for clients like ING and KPN. She greatly enjoys helping people and businesses to run and de-risk their next innovation project, taking customer-centricity to new heights.

Rachel is a Product Designer based in the Netherlands. She is currently working on Artificial Intelligence products at Mews, a unicorn startup in the hospitality industry. A T-shaped designer with broad expertise across innovation facilitation and product design, she has helped over 10 startups, corporations and non-profits around the world create more human-centered products.

Paul will welcome attendees, introduce speakers, and lead the Q&A sessions.

Paul Bryan is the Managing Director of ESP, and the producer of STRAT conferences in Asia, Europe and the USA. He also teaches a UX Strategy Workshop that has been hosted by Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, IBM, Netflix and many other companies in the US, Europe and Asia.

2024 is the year when generative AI moves away from experimentation - or random acts of AI - to focused value creation. In this talk, Cristina will cover the why’s and how’s of a focused genAI organisational strategy. From identifying highest potential areas within the customer lifecycle, to modelling the value case, to considering the wider aspects of scaling adoption across teams and departments. We’ll explore examples of successful genAI initiatives, common pitfalls, and of course the role of design strategy in this journey.

As the Experience Director for IBM iX, Cristina leads a full-spectrum team of designers, strategists and creatives through the ambitious journey of building business by design. Together with her team, she blends agency craft and consulting rigor for some of the world’s leading brands.

Cristina combines the Experience Director role with that of GenAI Strategy Lead for IBM Consulting, where she helps organizations maximize the business value of their genAI innovation initiatives and build meaningful impact for themselves and their customers.

Coming Soon

Sarah is the Founder and CEO of Formatif, an AI-enabled venture design studio for emerging technology startups. Through AI design workshops and initiatives, she advocates Human-Centered AI Innovation for emerging technology startups. From designing AI-driven products for Silicon Valley startups, venture investments in B2B startups, and crafting organizational design strategies for MNCs – Sarah’s unconventional design entrepreneurship journey has always revolved around blending business, tech, and design to lead innovative transformations in complex tech sectors. Her experiences include working in Venture Capital investments in the Bay Area, driving innovation consulting in corporates like Philips and Gensler, to working with emerging technology startups in Web 3.0 and AI to design and launch human-centered products. A significant highlight was her yearlong collaboration with AI Singapore, where she developed the Human-Centered AI (HCAI) design methodology and toolkit, revolutionizing AI product innovation with an ethical focus.

Time to get to know your fellow attendees

Almost everyone will be speaking as they enjoy our chef's selection of pastries, juices, coffee and tea.

Together we will dive into the tranformational power of AI in financial services. In this talk we will look at the tension and dichotomy of having robots help us with the most basic and important driver of business – human experiences.

From personalized recommendations to real-time fraud detection, AI is now our revolutionaly partner in the customer journey. But will the customer always be human? We will explore real trends, challenges and opportunities of integrating AI, and take a sneak peek into the future.

Chrissy is a UX Director working within analytics at ING Wholesale Bank. She builds elevated experiences that drive business growth for digital products. Her areas of interest and expertise are within AI, fintech, health-tech, e-commerce, & digital product innovation She is a design thinker, innovator, and creator. She aims for clarity, simplicity and consistency while leaving space for fun and surprising details for users. Her previous work includes being UX Directors at Deloitte & Philips.

One minute about you, one minute about them, two minutes of banter, then switch! This is always an audience favorite in our event feedback.

Everybody

The food at STRAT is consistently rated highly. Please make sure you have specified any special meal requirements at least a week before the conference during the ticket purchase or contact email.

Everybody

Strategic design and research is about shaping decision-making. It redefines how problems are approached, identifies opportunities for action, and helps deliver innovation. With an increased focus on data, new opportunities brought by AI and continuous discovery practices, clarifying and sharpening our value as designers and researchers has become more relevant than ever.

In this talk, Vanessa will share how research can shape strategic decision-making in an organization. She will share IKEA’s research blueprint for how research is organised to ensure impact at scale, and encourage decision-making at multiple levels of the organization. We’ll examine how strategic design and research is as much about people as it is about insights, and how we can play a fundamental role in driving innovation.

Vanessa is the Director of Design & UX Research at IKEA Digital, and leads a global team of researchers working across multiple product teams and business areas. In her research work, she draws upon both qualitative and quantitative to help organizations and product teams better understand deep human insight to drive actionable human-centered business & product innovation.

In a dynamic and swiftly evolving environment like design, establishing a strong link between design research and business value holds immense significance. Through this presentation, my aim is to share how, at BI X, we leverage our Value Framework to foster a more profound alignment with our business associates. This involves harmonizing desirability with viability and substantiating the returns on investment derived from design research. Furthermore, we will delve into our strategy for conducting research within a compliant setting and pinpoint approaches that enable you to carry back tangible illustrations for scaling in diverse scenarios.

In the context of the Value Framework, I will talk about how we are experimenting with Generative AI for visioning, ideation, segmentation and prototyping.

Thomas is the Head of Product Design at BI X, Boehringer's Innovation Lab. Since its inception, he has been instrumental in establishing it‘s product design process from the ground up. Prior to his time at BI X, Thomas served as one of the pioneering UX Designers at ING bank, where he actively contributed to the development of their fintech hub. Before that, he had the opportunity to work in London, where he played a key role in the digital transformation of a traditional print business. Throughout his career, Thomas has consistently taken on the role of a 'Founding Designer,' joining organizations in their early stages of human-centered transformation, building high-performance teams, and spearheading the design strategy.

Time to get to know your fellow attendees

Almost everyone will be speaking as they enjoy our chef's selection of pastries, juices, coffee and tea.

Expert panelists will discuss approaches for more intensive collaboration between the roles that constitute the product strategy function.

Panelists will be announced at the conference.

Paul will close the day and transition us to Happy Hour.

Paul Bryan is the Managing Director of ESP, and the producer of STRAT conferences in Asia, Europe and the USA. He also teaches a UX Strategy Workshop that has been hosted by Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, IBM, Netflix and many other companies in the US, Europe and Asia.

Free drinks and finger food, and an opportunity to make group dinner plans.

Everybody

Free drinks, a rocking DJ, dancing (optional), highly competitive beer pong, and more.

Everybody

Paul will introduce speakers, lead the Q&A sessions, and apologize for his dancing the night before.

Paul Bryan is the Managing Director of ESP, and the producer of STRAT conferences in Asia, Europe and the USA. He also teaches a UX Strategy Workshop that has been hosted by Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, IBM, Netflix and many other companies in the US, Europe and Asia.

In my talk I'll dive deeper in the essence of designing user-centric dialogues and what this looks like with Microsoft's newest AI solutions. As a product manager, I’ll share firsthand experiences of developing custom AI solutions, such as search solutions and conversational assistants, cutting through the hype to reveal the real-world challenges and milestones. Expect to uncover the practical wisdom hidden within industry case studies and to gain insights into the innovative tools that are propelling the field forward. This session is tailored for anyone seeking to transform buzzwords into meaningful, tangible experiences that resonate with users and redefine the future of human-AI interaction.

Josephine is a product manager for customized product solutions at Microsoft. As a product manager, she is responsible for overseeing the discovery and delivery work for implementing disruptive technologies and turning these into customized product solutions. Her primary goal is to ensure the final solution delivers user value, is usable, feasible and viable for the business. In addition to her role at Microsoft, Josephine also hosts The Design Strategy Podcast and is a guest speaker for events and education. Outside of work, Josephine enjoys strolling around her home city Amsterdam, hiphop dance and visiting impressionist art museums.

Generative AI offers a new set of opportunities to create truly personalised travel planning experiences. Successfully designing and delivering these experiences requires new approaches and forming new relationships. In this talk, we'll explore a case study of Booking.com's AI Trip Planner from the perspective of a UX writer and discuss how, by leaping outside of our comfort zone, we can forge new alliances with other disciplines to create impactful AI user experiences.

Chris Cameron has over 13 years of professional writing experience across journalism, marketing, and UX. As a Principal UX Writer at Booking.com, Chris oversees UX Writing Systems, managing the tools and workflows that enable over 80 UX writers to efficiently create high-quality content localised into over 45 languages and dialects. Recently, Chris has been part of a team of UX leaders at Booking.com directing the integration of Generative AI into personalised customer experiences, such as the AI Trip Planner.

Time to get to know your fellow attendees

Almost everyone will be speaking as they enjoy our chef's selection of pastries, juices, coffee and tea.

When you think about Industrial Robots you properly don’t imagine a beautiful Nordic design inspired from Danish Architecture. And maybe you wonder why that is needed to create a human-centered design both hardware and software? In this talk Anja will describe how to turn an engineer heavy company into a customer driven organization with focus on product design and building great experiences. The talk will include great examples, explain about how to build a UX and Product Design organisation and how to create fundamentals that everyone in the company can benefit from.

As Head of UX and Product Design in Universal Robots, Anja leads the Customer Journey and drive customer success in automation. Anja is an inspirational design lead working in an engineer dominated area, her background is within Ecommerce, Advertising and Concept development. Anja believes that Product Design and UX (User Experience) are strongly linked, and she will share her experiences creating a user focused and design driven organization in an engineering world.

This is an interactive session where we discuss, as a group, what we think the most important safeguards related to AI are. Together we will continue to evolve the AI Humanifesto, which will serve as a useful tool for helping your company stay on track with their AI efforts.

Multiple Speakers

The food at STRAT is consistently rated highly. Please make sure you have specified any special meal requirements at least a week before the conference during the ticket purchase or contact email.

Everybody

AI is leading us to a paradigm shift in user interfaces. Current interfaces are deterministic: a generic design is created that attempts to support all possible use cases. The result is often a complex design that puts the burden on the user. AI-driven user interfaces are probabilistic. The design is created real-time, based on the userâ•˙s intent, context and history, providing just the right options at the right time. This requires a completely new way of designing user interfaces, where we design the rules, and let AI fill in the details. This change is unavoidable in a world of AI interfaces. The question is who gets there first.

Skilled in leading design innovation teams, Kay Hofmeester has extensive experience working with AI and machine learning. He led the team that designed and shipped the initial Amazon’s Alexa, building one of the first successful voice user interfaces. He managed the Microsoft Research design team working on using machine learning models to turn vast caches of health data into actionable user experiences. At Meta he started the design team that helped take augmented reality glasses from the research stage to productization, working on complex engineering and user experience problems, and envisioning a future with augmented reality.

Currently Kay is defining AI experiences on smart and AR glasses, determining UX strategy and aligning hardware and software technical capabilities, including looking ahead to where AI might lead user experience design. Previously he was creative director at an agency, led a design team at a startup and at a design research organization.

Time to get to know your fellow attendees

Almost everyone will be speaking as they enjoy our chef's selection of pastries, juices, coffee and tea.

Members of the audience will propose their own short presentations; topics for discussion or problem-solving; further formulation of the AI Humanifesto; etc. that will be upvoted for inclusion in this section of the program.

We will have to wait until the upvoting happens to know who the speakers will be.

Paul will close the day and transition us to Happy Hour.

Paul Bryan is the Managing Director of ESP, and the producer of STRAT conferences in Asia, Europe and the USA. He also teaches a UX Strategy Workshop that has been hosted by Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, IBM, Netflix and many other companies in the US, Europe and Asia.

Free drinks and finger food, exchanging contact info with people you've gotten to know, and an opportunity to make group dinner plans.

Everybody