Name: Judy Jin

Course/Stream: Des 301: Business and DEI

Project: Pathway

Description: Pathway is a digital platform that empowers East Asian women in tech with interview preparation. The platform fosters a supportive community by streamlining mentorship and peer finding processes. It connects interview partners, aligns expectations, and helps with progress tracking. This not only enhances skills and confidence, but also helps job seekers to embrace their cultural backgrounds for success. Pathway builds authentic relationships and networks, addressing Business DEI by bridging the tech gender gap, and empowering East Asian women professionally.

Name: Kate Missen

Course/Stream: Des 301: Business and DEI

Project: Beyond Words

Description: Beyond Words is an informative publication. The goal is to create understanding and empathy towards dyslexia. It shows the struggles dyslexic individuals face side by side with strategies the workplace can use to better cater for dyslexia. This publication’s goal is to create empathy and understanding of what dyslexia actually is. Through my research of the experiences and obstacles faced by those with dyslexia, I aim to promote a sense of awareness and appreciation for the daily battles they confront.

Name: Bee Fourie

Course/Stream: Des 301: Business and DEI

Project: Crafting Allies

Description: Crafting Allies uses the creative medium of quilting towards gender-expansive and trans inclusive workplaces. Through facilitated quilting workshops, participants explore their lived experiences and connect with colleagues of varying gender identities. Through kōrero and the making of individual quilt blocks, employees gain agency over their identity or allyship and widen their perspectives on what gender and allyship can mean.

Name: Emma Le Quesne

Course/Stream: Des 301: Business and DEI

Project: Rerenga

Description: Rerenga is an app designed to be implemented across community gardens in Tāmaki Makaurau and is based on the traditional Māori knowledge of Maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar. Research suggests that traditional Māori practices, specifically Maramataka, have the potential to successfully address challenges, such as food sovereignty, in local communities by restoring a sense of control over local food production and distribution through promoting culturally appropriate healthy food and sustainable methods like community gardens. Rerenga streamlines Maramataka knowledge into one application to guide the users’ planting and harvesting according to the Maramataka.

Name: Ally Tang

Course/Stream: Des 301: Business and DEI

Project: Cultivate

Description: Cultivate is a co-design toolkit designed to facilitate collaboration and alignment amongst key actors in Aotearoa New Zealand’s food system. It aims to empower key decision makers with the insights necessary to advance our food system alongside local communities and in alignment with te tiriti. Cultivate draws upon principles of co-design, gamification and “serious” play to create a level playing field for knowledge sharing and collaboration to take place. The four tools encourage key actors to engage in kōrero, consider the people impacted, understand each other’s value and practise long term thinking.

Cultivate is based on the Mana Kai framework; a te ao Māori framing of the purposes and values of our food system published by the Aotearoa Circle. Through the integration of the Mana Kai framework, Cultivate aims to strengthen alignment between key actors, encourage systemic thinking and model positive relationships with Māori as tanga tiriti.

Name: Fiona Yoon

Course/Stream: Des 301: Business and DEI

Project: ARctive

Description: ARctive is an exercise therapy program for New Zealand’s elders, using augmented reality and artificial intelligence to address depression holistically. ARctive highlights the mind-body connections and focuses on physical well-being that is often left unaddressed in mental health resources. Its goal is to enhance overall health and reduce the risk of depression. The programme offers progressive brain and physical training in an augmented reality environment and promotes emotional expression, offers guidance, and fosters community connections.

Name: Von Durban

Course/Stream: Des 301: Business and DEI

Project: TheraVision

Description: TheraVision is a project which intersects emerging technology and mental well-being. It’s an immersive and dynamic virtual support platform that combines AI technology with Virtual Reality, designed to alleviate social isolation among youth. By fostering genuine connections, promoting empathy, and empowering personal growth, TheraVision aims to reshape how we address mental health challenges in the digital age.

Name: Fei Lu

Course/Stream: Des 301: Business and DEI

Project: Feather View

Description: Feather View addresses a pressing urban challenge: bird collisions with windows. Our innovative solution combines education, artistry, and sustainability to protect urban bird populations. Through an engaging website, users can design and apply custom anti-bird collision stickers, transforming them into life-saving marks for our feathered friends. Feather View aims to enhance people’s connection to nature while reducing bird collisions. It’s a commitment to creating a safer, more harmonious cityscape where humans and birds can thrive.

Name: Stephanie Townend

Course/Stream: Des 301: Business and DEI

Project: The Paper Bird Project

Description: Aotearoa has created a reputation as a country that cherishes and safeguards its wildlife. However, amidst this backdrop of care and conservation, an exception emerges in the Tarāpunga or Red-Billed Gull. In this context, speciesism discusses animal ethics and refers to the human-held belief that a particular animal is inferior based on their species. The Paper Bird Project explores how the promotion of empathy and understanding can be taught in childhood to break the cycle of speciesism for future generations. Focused on the relationship between children and Tarāpunga in Tāmaki Makaurau, it aims to nurture empathy through literature.

Name: Harry Bushell

Course/Stream: Des 301: Business and DEI

Project: Grass to Growth

Description: Habitats are essential for all living organisms. As human habitats increase through urbanisation, other spaces are being underutilised and/or destroyed, resulting in a lack of habitats placing local non-human species at risk. The research question “How might we develop urban spaces with the help of Football to mutually benefit multiple natural species?” was used throughout this project, following a quantitative experimental research methodology alongside the Design for Conservation Methodology. Through New Zealand’s love for sport and my own personal interests, Grass to Growth uses specially designed seed-planting studs to transform under-utilised green urban spaces into habitats for local at-risk species alongside a curated casebook highlighting sustainable improvements for local football clubs.