Housed in the School of Creative Industries and Innovation Hub’s Honeysuckle building, FASTLab carries out research and development at the intersection of Art, Science and Technology.

FASTLab is a Gateway to the University of Newcastle’s internationally recognised research centres, the expertise of staff, students and graduates, and the outstanding facilities the University has to offer.

Across its themes of Human Behaviour, Future Work, Transmedia Arts, Narrative possibilities and Connected Communities the FASTLab team thinks - among other things - about Innovation and enterprise; Technology (AI & Robotics); globalization; migration; aging; (in-work) poverty and inequality; macro-economic instability. FASTLab’s transdisciplinary team pursues a broad range of projects, from exhibitions and installations, performances and prototypes, to cooperation with the private sector, NGO’s and universities. FASTLab and your business

New and emerging technologies and innovative business models are rapidly transforming life, business and the global economy. As digital technologies reshape and disrupt our world, businesses established in less turbulent times need to make complex and critical decisions to navigate this changed landscape.

We offer organisations real insights, analysis, and tools to help them tackle the constantly evolving challenge of change.

FASTLab is the creative industry's vehicle for connecting across the Australian Government’s nine STEM focused research priority centres.

FASTLab recognises that STEM Research is key to discovery and that this is associated with Practical Quantitative Research Challenges However, the socialization of human behaviour that enables these discoveries to be usedeffectively, and impact society are part of our unique approach in the creative industries.

In a post-industrial era, competition is not just about the pursuit of efficiency. To attain sustainable economic growth and balanced social and environmental developments, we need a paradigm shift on how businesses, the government and the NGOs cancreate value through creativity and innovation. We need talents with new mind sets and skill sets to meet the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century.

Our Research focuses on human centred interactions, it harnesses human imagination, empathy, cooperation, co-design, design thinking, visualization, playfulness and creativity. This approach complements and enhances the STEM Research. It enables a better understanding of the underlying systems of creativity, and motivations of humans. It provides new opportunities to solve Australia’s most important challenges.

There are a number of ways to work with FASTLab.

RAPID is series of research ‘sprints’ conducted over a 3-6 month period. EachRAPID sprint is a research project carried out between FASTLab researchers and anexternal partner (a community, business or NGO). RAPID provides financial, human and technological resources to enable partners to work together on user-driven real-world problems.

If you’re tired of consultants wielding post-it-notes and maker-pens we can offer a completely different and dynamic format for your next workshop. Our playful processes deliver results and a high level of participant satisfaction. From Hackathons to one-day games we design sessions that engage all your staff ensuring that everyone’s ideas are liberated. Whether you’re innovating, strategizing, team building or problem solving – use our creative talent to get you to where you need to be and enjoy the journey to get you there!

This one doesn’t really need much more describing but our staff team have research expertise to help you evaluate the success of a current project or co-design a new one using (for example) innovation and Human-Centered Design research methods through Visual Storytelling, Design Thinking, Design Ethnography, User Experiences(UX), Service Design, Co- & Participatory Design. You can ask us to build and test prototypes and pretotypes... We can help you innovate your product as a service provider, help you reinvent your role and support it with digital frameworks and platforms, adding the customer experience and your client ownership.

We run keynotes and interactive talks to provoke and promote discussion about the things that have been exercising us at any given time.

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