SPEAKERS

Bec Barnett is an interdisciplinary designer, project manager, lead researcher and Co-Director of Relative Creative, a Gold Coast, Australia based strategic design studio. In this role, she spearheads the design and implementation of a wide range of projects. She has extensive experience working across all levels of government as well as with a wide range of businesses and organisations, on projects of varying size and complexity. Bec has experience working in numerous cultural contexts and communities, in Australia and around the world.
Bec maintains an active research focus to remain informed and has published papers, presented at events and organised large multi-day workshops locally and internationally. She also convenes, lectures and tutors for Griffith University’s Design School. Bec holds a B.Design and M. Design Honours (first class).

 is a redirective placemaking praxis consulting, researching and educating about planning, design and management.

Jānis is redirective practitioner with almost ten years of international experience in urban planning and design. He believes in making care as the fundamental substance of design. 

Alija Turlaja is an entrepreneur and active citizen. Already 8 years she is leading a community organisation representing Sarkandaugava neighbourhood. Main focus of Alija’s work through neighbourhood activism has been to promote the role of neighbourhood associations and citizen participation in the city planning processes. Alija has a Master's degree in Culture and Arts Management. She produced several projects during the European Capital of Culture Riga2014, including the successful public space transformation project "Alekša skvērs", which is only one tangible results after the EcoC ended. Alija is one of the founders of the Riga Neighborhood Alliance, where she has worked on implementing participatory budgeting in Riga city municipality.

Viesturs Celmiņš is anthropologist specializing in design and planning. From 2013/2014. he organized The City Seminar at the University of Cambridge. 2015/2016 he participated in the creation of the Baltic Pavilion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale and since 2016 has been studying the future of knowledge territories in the framework of the project “Live Baltic Campus” at the University of Latvia.

VEFRESH movement was launched in 2019 when VEF district technology companies joined forces with real estate developers and Riga municipality owned culture venue “VEF Kulturas pils”. The movement aims to redevelop VEF district as a pilot territory for smart city solutions where corporations, start ups and public sector prototype and test their latest solutions in public space.
Based at the industrial quarter of former electronics giant “VEF” and its surrounding territories, VEFRESH has set out to transform this location as a dynamic environment for people to live, work and relax. VEFRESH stands for a people-friendly, sustainable environment, convenient, accessible public transport and new technology use in benefit of the diverse people of VEF district.
At the same time VEFRESH will also work to bring the idea further and advocate for development and promotion of innovation that comes from the Baltics at the international stage.

Estonian Academy of arts (EKA) provides higher education in art, design, architecture, media, art history and conservation-restoration, promoting creativity and research through those fields. 
Project: Foresight Centre of the Estonian Parliament has collaborated with the Estonian Academy of Arts for the second time for a three weeks-long Speculative Design course. Students from Product Design BA and Interaction Design MA curriculums worked together in teams to speculate on the future of retirement in 2050.
Lecturer: Nesli Hazal Akbulut, is an interaction designer and an educator based in Tallinn. She has obtained her Master's Degree from EKA's International Interaction Design Masters program where she currently works as a lecturer and a curriculum developer.

The project depicts a sudden powerful burst of the creativity within the protest movement against dictatorship in Belarus. Performance, music, posters, design, street-art and photography — all springs from the power of the protest and returns back to nourish and foster it. The main gallery walls are streets and the main artists are the people of Belarus.

Gunita’s background is in architecture, urbanism, and strategic design. Her curiosity and entrepreneurial mindset led her into founding the immersive tech company Vividly. Since 2016, she has been actively involved in discussions about immersive tech for better cities, engaging communities and digital master planning. Gunita is a member of Woman in VR as well as an active opinion leader in immersive tech space, a TEDx speaker and a member of Forbes 30 under 30.  Gunita will be talking about the future of participatory planning with immersive XR technology and an integrated digital master planning approach based on findings of the Augmented Urbans  project.

Tuda Syuda is a terraforming platform led by a 'conversation' between two artificial intelligence systems, Chef and Farmer. In their interplay, they generate experimental new dishes and terrain-scale interiors. Meanwhile, human users pluck these dishes and landscapes from a dynamic interface that allows them to consume in the accelerating artifice of agriculture.

Education:
▪Research program, ‘The New Normal’, Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design (2018)
▪Master degree in Engineering, Ural Federal State University, Ekaterinburg, Russia (2009-2014)
▪Program in Interaction Design and GUI development, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet, Lyngby, Denmark (2012)
▪Program in Architectual Engineering and Augmented reality technology program, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain (2011)
Experience:
▪Head of AR/VR department at Strelka KB, Russia (current)
▪Head of 3D design department. Maestro Displays, United Arab Emirates (2014-2017)
▪Visiting Tutor and Speaker for AR/VR/MR (e.g. Russian Culture TV show, 2018);
▪Future Architects Conference, 2018; In_The_City, 2018; Science Slam, 2016; TEDx, 2015; Incitement, 2015; IKRA, 2014)

Education:
▪Research program, ‘The New Normal’, Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design (2018)
▪Masters degree, Design Interactions, The Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom (2014-2016)
▪Bachelor degree, Industrial & Product Design, École Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne, Switzerland (2010-2014)
Experience:
▪Researcher, JC&Associates, London, United Kingdom (2017-current)
▪Researcher, BBC, Salford & London, United Kingdom (2018) - CAD Designer & Fabricator, Joseph Waller Fabrications, London,  United Kingdom (2016-2017)
Residencies:
▪ ‘Art+Tech’, SPACE, London, United Kingdom (2020)
▪ ‘Arnis Residency’, Arnis, Germany (2020) - ‘EXECAL Residence’, La Becque, La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland (2019)
▪ ‘The Future World of Work’, FACT, Liverpool, United Kingdom (2018)
▪ ‘Designer In Residence’, ArtEZ, Arnhem (2017)
Project: an overview of  potential future of XR industry for multidisciplinary users thru discussion about current position of Spatial Computing technologies. Our goal is to share accessible features and potential future for XR as a next big media channel. Meeting in VR allow us to demonstrate benefits and challenges for virtual reality and related tech stack.

Sergey is the Art director at Art. Lebedev Studio, Co-founder at Timestripe.com.