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A discussion on global creative industries, innovation and transformative technologies and the insights we can take from Weta Digital and other global digital workshops.

Jordan Small
Executive Director

In this episode I’m joined by Leon Gurevitch – an Associate Professor at Wellington’s Victoria University in their Design school. Leon’s research focuses on global creative industries, innovation and transformative technologies.

Recorded late last year – it is a discussion that really couldn’t be more on point for today. Particularly, as the national discussion focuses on restarting the economy and taking the opportunity to reset and rethink what we want our post-COVID world and post-COVID New Zealand to look like.

It is quite a wide ranging chat where we look at encouraging experimentation, what is innovation, the importance of R&D spend to attracting highly qualified international talent, the opportunity that World War two presented to put aside conservatism and the barriers to innovation, and the kind of policy settings that have been helpful elsewhere in the world.

Leon has researched closely Weta Digital and other global digital workshops – so the discussion is often through the case study of Weta and the lessons or insights we can take from this example.

Guest bios:

  • Leon’s research covers areas of convergence between art and science, design and technology, collaborative and cross-disciplinary projects with a focus on Digital Simulation and Imaging Industries. Applied design sociology gathering data regarding individual and collective human social behavior. Such data is applied to both traditional academic analysis and less conventional design research outputs (usable software tools, visual representations, social science communication videos, photography and data-visualization). Interested in both design research, academic output and public engagement through the possibilities emerging from software culture and publicly available data.

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