As technologies evolve at an exponential rate, businesses and employees need tools to design a secure future amidst disruptions to contemporary work practices.

AMP and UNSW Sydney today launched “Designing the Future of Work”, a massive open online course (MOOC) which explores how employers and employees can adapt to a rapidly evolving environment in which artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and big data are changing the fundamental nature of how we live and work.

The course brings together leading business and design thinking to answer questions such as:

• What new, disruptive technologies are on the horizon?
• How will jobs change?
• What challenges will employers and employees face?
• How can the design process help businesses and employees to create innovative solutions to overcome such challenges?

The new free online course shares insights and lessons from AMP’s innovation and ideas program, Amplify. Global thought leaders including Heather McGowan (Author and Adviser, Work to Learn), Ramez Naam (Innovation Lecturer, Singularity University), Sue Suckling (Chair of Callaghan Innovation) and UNSW Art & Design academics provide detailed insights on how technology will shape the workforce and workplace of the future, the role of humans in this new world, and how to translate this into business design.

Course leader Associate Professor Simon McIntyre, Associate Dean Education at UNSW Sydney Art & Design, said the new MOOC investigates design strategies that businesses can adopt to find new opportunities in a rapidly changing professional landscape.

Associate Professor McIntyre said: “The course shows how people can predict the probable changes that might occur in their own work in the future. It also provides design strategies to cope with this change and maximise the potential that these technologies bring for themselves or their business.

“By working with leading futurists and business innovators from AMP Amplify, we were able to bring both academic and practical perspectives to give learners real world examples and strategies to help them become predictive, adaptive, and secure in their own work futures.”

During the four-week course, students will learn effective design thinking strategies from leading UNSW Art & Design academics and examine case studies from business and service design perspectives that demonstrate how design can transform business processes to become more adaptive to and predictive of technological and social change. Students will also hear directly from participants in AMP’s Amplify program who share personal insights and advice about how to develop attributes and skills to safeguard an advantage in the workplace of the future. 

AMP Director Culture, Leadership and Diversity Chloe Hawcroft said, “We are proud to be expanding our innovation and ideas program into online learning. Through Amplify, we bring global thought leaders to AMP offices to share their insights with our partners, clients, customers and employees.

“Now we have the opportunity to share these global insights with a broader audience and equip participants to prepare themselves and their businesses with practical tools for the future.”

Course URL: https://www.coursera.org/learn/designing-future-of-work

About Amplify

AMP’s innovation and ideas program, Amplify, is Australia's leading business and innovation platform for exploring technology, thought leadership and customer experience with some of the world’s boldest thinkers.

Since 2005, AMP has collaborated with some of the best minds on the planet to explore the latest global trends and transformative technologies by hosting an annual festival, talks, panels, seed funding events, innovative expos, fast tracks, workshops and breakfasts.