5 Minutes With... Tim Devine

Tim Devine is a techno-ecologist, artist and innovation leader specialising in the application of design, technology and science to make the world a more respectful, inclusive and regenerative place.

He believes we urgently need to create new business practices, public policies and individual behaviours that improve the chances of us transitioning to a regenerative system.

And his work has received numerous accolades globally, including an Honourable Mention in the Prix Ars Electronica for the Code of Conscience, winner of Fast Companies World Changing Ideas, Australia’s Most Innovative Company, enabling AKQA Australia to be the most awarded Australian studio at Cannes Lions 2021 as well as D&AD Pencils, Webbys and Clios. Recent work includes Open Methane, Action Audio, RGBlack and The [uncertain] Four Seasons.

This month, he was promoted to chief invention officer at AKQA.

LBB> Congratulations on the new role! What does your new title of chief invention officer mean to you in practice? How do you define invention in a creative technology context?

Tim> We've been doing this for a decade, at least. Innovation comes in all sorts of forms, and I think this is just a scaling of what we've already been doing in this region to a global context. We've been doing a lot, but now we've decided that it's had such a good impact on our company over the years. We keep getting to work on these amazing brands, but we also get to help launch and grow and shape amazing organisations like The Superpower Institute [a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to helping "seize the extraordinary economic opportunities of the post-carbon world"] in Australia. They're going to have a real impact.

When we talk about the levers that we want to move or use to create systemic impacts, we think about changing behaviours, new business models or practices, and changing policy. When we talk about invention, we talk, ‘I'm good at technology, I can do technology with my eyes closed’ -- but it's a love-hate relationship. Over the years we've recognised that, the more we know about it, the more we know when it's good to use it and when to just get on with it.

LBB> How did you end up in this industry? Was it a purposeful decision or more of a happy accident?

Tim> I was going to do a PhD at Melbourne University. It was all locked in, I had just finished my Master's at art school in Austria, and I had applied for a job. I was 50/50 about whether I should go for the job. I went for the job, didn't get the job. Then they called me and offered me a role as a creative technologist. It was really good, it allowed me to explore a more formal practice, I suppose, and I learned so much working in this company. I've been here 15 years now. It's my first real job, but it continues to be really rewarding. I get to work on lots of amazing projects with amazing people.

​LBB> Which projects have most shaped you over the years?

Tim> 'Action Audio' is definitely one. It's a huge project, we're just wrapping up a pilot with the NBA and we expect that to scale to lots of different sports this year. It's a really exciting project.

Open Electricity and Open Methane are having significant impacts on the election and public policy. We can't ask for better outcomes than that.

Getting the opportunity to really push ourselves on projects like the Netflix work last year with the launch of their ‘It's What's Inside’ film was awesome. It was the same as the Nike and Serena Williams project -- short time frame, stupidly complicated technically, but we learned a lot, and we got there in the end.

The projects that really drive me in and shape me are the ones like a project we’re working on with Oz Harvest ventures at the moment using rescued foods. We've got a role to play in helping them do that really meaningful work. We've got a role to play to help The Superpower Institute bring new knowledge into the world for people to make good decisions, and a role to play in bringing 'Action Audio' into the world to include more people in the social aspects of sport and sports fandom.

​LBB> Your work often blends art, science, and tech. How do you maintain that balance while solving commercial challenges?

Tim> I was talking to Peter Lund, our global chief creative officer, last year in Tokyo about this. We're all solving business problems or societal challenges. We're all problem solvers.

One of the biggest lessons I learned in the first half of my career within this organisation was that we don't have to have all the answers, and we shouldn't expect to have all answers. We should be looking outward to the people that are doing the deep thinking and deep research and helping them bring their thinking into the world, and finding the sites of design, rather than thinking that we are the design saviours.

We're problem solvers, that's what we do. We solve hard problems. That's what gets us motivated. It's that simple, I can't over complicate it.

​LBB> How important is it for your work to have societal or environmental impact? Is that a lens you bring to all briefs?

Tim> It's a privilege to have opportunities that can tap into societal and environmental challenges, but we're not snobs. We work with amazing companies that are just good companies, we're not snobs about it.

We just want to help businesses grow, help businesses meet their audiences in ways that make sense and are meaningful. We have a lot of societal and environmental projects, I think because there's a lot of that stuff happening.

It's less about seeking out societal and environmental projects, but just knowing that that's a reality. Anyone who said that's not a reality today is naive to the context within which we all live. We all live in a changing world, and we're just getting on with it.

LBB> As you look ahead, what are your key goals for AKQA for the rest of 2025 (and beyond)?

Tim> For the last 10 years we've had an innovation team, we've committed to working on and actively solving organisational and societal problems for clients and making most of the opportunities that they have in this region. My role is to do that at scale across the rest of the network, which we've been doing in parts, but it's more of a formalisation of that.

These kinds of changes give me an opportunity to reset, give our team an opportunity to reset. You can form little behaviours that aren't as efficient as they could be, so it's an opportunity to reset a little bit for how we're doing these things -- take the things that are going well, let go of the things that aren’t, and reflect on what's ahead.

As far as invention goes, it's an active practice in solving problems, making the most of opportunities. That's what we'll be doing across all our clients across the network. We've got a really strong, rigorous index that we're using to calculate the biggest opportunities that we want to actively invest in, because it is an investment -- what we're doing is basically setting up a centre of excellence in this region around invention. It's one of three key practice areas of AKQA globally, we're really lucky to be able to be the centre of that in this region.

I’m just really keen to get on with it. I know it sounds a little bit, hopefully not dismissive, but we've been doing this for years now. It's an opportunity to grow and do it at scale.

LBB> What’s something that recently sparked your curiosity -- an article, experiment, a conversation, or something else?

Tim> Audrey Tang, the cyber ambassador-at-large for Taiwan. They've been a massive influence on the work that we've done over the years, and their perspective on democratic decision making and action activism is awesome.

The things that really stood out for me were the way that they reframed terms that we use all the time in a really special way. They said, when we say virtual reality, let's make it a shared reality. When we say machine learning, let's make it collaborative learning. When we say user experience, let's make it about human experience. That sums up what gets me excited. That's just the right perspective to start inventing.