Event Summary

agIdeas International Design Week is one of the largest and most prestigious design festivals in the world. Established in 1991 by Ken Cato and developed and presented by the Design Foundation in Melbourne, Australia. agIdeas offers an extraordinary program of events that celebrate design excellence and promotes the value of design driven innovation.

Throughout the festival there are a series of events for designers who are seeking inspiration, for designers emerging in the industry to explore the possibilities of careers in design, for companies looking to embrace design as an economic driver, for design researchers to share knowledge, for primary school children to understand design and become the leaders of a design savvy generation and for members of the general public interested in design, innovation and creativity.

Organisation

Design Fountation

Team

Kristin McCourtie - Manager Design Foundation
Karen Sorensen - Marketing and Sponsorship Manager
Eleni Kaponis - Production Manager

Event Details

Each year agIdeas brings 40 internationally acclaimed creative people to Melbourne, those who have pushed the boundaries and excelled in their area of creativity. They present in program such as design conferences, business seminars, workshops, panel discussions and are present at social engagements.

Since its inception 440 of the world's leading designers have presented, 70,000 delegates have attended events, 21,000 have come together at the social gatherings, 40 young designers have benefited from travelling scholarships, 4,000 volunteers have helped organise and stage the events, 200,000 people have visited the Melbourne Museum during the NewStar Exhibition. The list of events that take place throughout the week include; the agIdeas International Design Forum, agIdeas Futures for high school students, agIdeas Next: Children for Design, the Advantage Business Breakfast, the agIdeas Research Conference, the disCourse Gala dinner, Design Masters workshops and the NewStar Cocktail party.

Innovation

agIdeas offers an innovative program for the development of design amongst the broader community. For some time it has been recognised globally that to build an innovative nation we need to embed design and creativity into the community at the youngest of ages.

As a larger series of events agIdeas offers programs in design research and is attracting submissions from around the world as well as delegates from international colleges. We know of student designers who come to Melbourne to live and work at the completion of their study because of the experiences they have at agIdeas and we are aware of students who have come to study design at Melbourne Universities because of their attendance at agIdeas.

Sustainability

We have reduced our printed publicity strategy to include more online marketing initiatives to reduce hard copy. We hold our event at MCEC which is world leader in sustainable practice.