Impact Talks at UTS

How do organisations identify and enact purpose?

How can we drive connection between personal and organisational purpose, meaning and values?

And how important are these issues in navigating an increasingly complex world?

Dr Suzy Green and Dr Rosemary Sainty pose these questions and more to Professor Emeritus Robert E. Quinn, Professor Carl Rhodes and Corene Strauss in a conversation about purpose, meaning and values to inspire pos...

This year, Australia is set to establish the role of a Poet Laureate, as part of the federal government’s Revive national cultural policy.

What is the relationship between poetry and the public realm—from bards to court poets to laureates?

How will a poet laureateship help shape the reception of Australian poetry at home and abroad?

Professor Holland-Batt talks to these questions, followed by a Q&A session...

What does it mean to belong in the water?

How can we get more women surfing? How can we create more inclusive line-ups? 

What challenges do Australian women surfers still face? 

Hear how surfing is changing in Australia - from the rise of women’s participation to equal pay, and find out why barriers like intimidation, unequal access, and outdated norms persist. 

How has media representation shaped these changes...

With the advent of generative AI, manipulation of information and data is taking a new turn. Deepfakes and AI generated and propagated misinformation and disinformation are proliferating online.

These trends are already undermining the reliability of news, disrupting elections, challenging democratic processes, and infringing rights globally. As automation rapidly expands the reach and scale of this phenomenon, policy and regulatio...

How can carbon be remade into stuff that we want and use every day?

Imagine a world where all the products we want and interact with become 'carbon sinks' and reduce atmospheric carbon emissions. 

in this world, when you buy a product, you'd decarbonise the atmosphere, make sure that the carbon stays out of the atmosphere and is repurposed in innovative ways. 

Production and consumption would be sustainable and have a positive impa...

World cities are home to the vast bulk of humanity.

Urban environments are also responsible for 75% of global emissions. 

In this international discussion, experts explore the transformative power of Green Infrastructure (GI) in urban landscapes and examine innovative ways to make cities smarter, greener, and more communal - places where people can live for generations to come.   

• The transformation of 'concrete jungles' into ...

Six problems. Six solutions. 

• Natural disasters and local communities.
• Sustainable building on a large scale.
• A carbon tax and climate economics.
• Engaging the public on climate change.
• The potential of algae to replace common materials.
• Recycling glass in new ways.

Hear three minute presentations from leading UTS experts and industry practitioners on solutions related to rethinking disaster recovery, new materials to dri...

In this extraordinary 'year of elections', voters in many parts of the world are being asked, not just to choose between parties and candidates, but to decide whether they still believe in the democratic system itself?

Fintan O'Toole asks why systems and values that had been taken for granted for so long are now in such peril. He argues that a central part of the problem is the distortion of the sense of victimhood.

There are profo...

At UTS, our diversity is our strength, with half of our staff and students born overseas and over 40 per cent coming from non-English language backgrounds. Despite this, universities can still be places where racist conduct and practices occur.  

Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman delivers a compelling keynote on the higher education sector's role in combating racism, and discusses the Australian Human Rights Com...

What is the role of the state in tackling climate change, boosting productivity, and creating the jobs of the future through industrial policy?

Professor Stiglitz (keynote speaker) is a Nobel Laureate, former World Bank Chief Economist, best-selling author and professor at Columbia University. 

Professor Kathy Walsh (moderator) is a Finance Professor and the Associate Dean (Research and Innovation) at the UTS Business School and ha...

How do technology, ethics, and responsible AI development intersect and how do they impact on our shared future?

Meredith Whittaker (keynote speaker) has over 17 years of experience in tech, spanning industry, academia, and government. Before joining Signal as President, she was the Minderoo Research Professor at NYU, and served as the Faculty Director of the AI Now Institute which she co-founded. Her research and scholarly work he...

Relive the glory days of Sydney’s iconic Hopetoun Hotel, the legendary Sydney music venue with musicians Sarah Blasko, Sally Seltmann and Clyde Bramley of the Hoodoo Gurus, and music photographer Tony Mott, in a Vivid Festival talk hosted by Liz Giuffre and Gregory Ferris.

The Hoey shut its doors suddenly in 2009 and has remained empty ever since. Relive the music scene of the 80s, 90s and early 2000s in this love letter to Sydney’...

How do fashion and technology intersect through AI? 

In today's fashion world, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is boosting the unsustainable practices of ultra-fast fashion and to cut designers out of the deal.

But, a new generation of innovators are keen to use the power of AI for good, to design better more sustainable clothes, and to address fashion's big land-fill problems. 

What's possible and how will they do it?

• Cha...