Designing the future to make this nation a great one
What does it mean to be Australian? Participating in GAP’s initiative to develop a Vision for Australia, Melis Senova says we need to establish a united sense of purpose and belief in what we stand for as a collective.
We often expend considerable amounts of energy planning, designing and establishing a purposeful vision for our businesses, but this significant approach is often not considered in the realm of a nation. Perhaps it’s because we don’t feel as individuals that we can make a difference or have a voice in defining our nation’s desired future state.
Having a sense of purpose and an articulated vision is essential as a uniting platform for business as it is for the citizens of Australia. In a time where our government has been in flux and lacking inspirational leadership, we need to collaborate and establish what it means to be an Australian.
How can we create a nation that engages its citizens in its development and growth, one that positively impacts lives, transforms communities, generates value for people and advances and sustains us?
These are the questions that I hope we will answer as we establish the vision for Australia:
- How can we become a meaningful nation?
- What is Australia’s purpose, our values, our sense of responsibility?
- What do we stand for and want to be perceived as a people?
- How do we want the international community to experience us as a nation?
- How might we establish our unique differentiation on a global scale, manifesting a culture that other nations aspire to?
- What is our advantage as a nation? And how are we playing to our strengths?
There are many more pertinent questions that I am sure will emerge through this process from the wonderful minds and hearts who will be participating in this initiative.
If we are to make this nation a great one, one that is known in history to be ‘one of the greats’, we need to establish a united sense of purpose, passion and belief in what we stand for as a collective. We as human beings that share this part of the world can craft and deliberately design this future. We just need to choose to do so.
Dr. Melis Senova is a pioneer in design thinking and founder of global strategic design consultancy, Huddle. She is a leader committed to making a positive change to humanity and focussed on human-centred design for the transformation of service, culture, communities and business. Melis has deep academic qualifications and vast business experience, underpinned by a PhD in Human Factors (user-centred design).
A highly regarded and enterprising thought-leader, Melis brings innovation and creativity to lead businesses and organisations towards exciting and ground-breaking frontiers through the power of design. By collaborating with other influential change makers on a global scale, Melis seeks to provide pathways to re-imagined realties.
Melis is also the founder of Huddle Labs (a research capability innovating the definition of value in a post-capitalist society), Huddle Academy (a school focussed on building creative problem solving skills for individuals and organisations) and Huddle Foundation (a platform that connects designers, philanthropists and social enterprises). She is a member of Creative Victoria’s Creative State Advisory Board, a member of the Victorian State Government’s Innovation Expert Panel, and a member of the advisory board for A Vision for Australia (a series of Annual Economic Summits hosted by Global Access Partners).
