Creatik is hosting a SXSW panel
Big news from Creatik: we’ve been officially accepted into SXSW Sydney 2025! Led by Adelle, our panel will explore how design thinking can reshape how we live, work, move, and fund our futures.
Let’s be honest, when you think of SXSW, you probably don’t think of retirement. And fair enough. Retirement has never exactly been the poster child for innovation, imagination, or bold design thinking.
But… what if it was?
On Tuesday 14 October 2025, we’ll be hosting a panel session titled:
“Retiring Outdated Thinking: Turning the Silver Surge into a Golden Opportunity.”
This isn’t your standard talk on retirement (trust us, no beige brochures in sight.) It’s a bold, design-led conversation about one of the most universal and most overlooked innovation opportunities of our time: how we live, thrive, and grow older.
Why this panel?
Because aging isn’t a crisis. It’s a design brief.
Our session flips the narrative from “Silver Tsunami” to “Silver Surfing the Surge.” Together, we’ll explore how finance, neuroscience, and creativity can unlock better ways to fund futures, reimagine lifestyle-led retirement, and empathy-led research initiatives.
Meet our Panelists
Carly O’Keefe General Manager of Marketing, Challenger
Andrew McVeigh CEO, Remara
Professor Muireann Irish Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Sydney
Moderated by: Adelle Chang, Business & Design Director, Creatik
This is a cross-sector mix you don’t usually see on the same stage, and it’s sure to bring an interesting conversation.
How it happened
The idea was born in our studio when three clients came to us in the same month with briefs around solving a retirement challenge through design. A pattern was forming and we knew this conversation belonged on a bigger stage, one that celebrates innovation, empathy, and design as a force for change.
So we pitched it. With colour, with provocation, and maybe even a joke about annuities (we promise, they land). And SXSW said yes.
Why this conversation?
Because it’s the one thing we’re all doing.
No matter who you are, Gen Z, Boomer, Millennial with a skincare fridge, you’re aging. It’s universal. And yet, it’s still framed like an “other people” problem. The more we ignore it, the less prepared we are to live well, longer.
We’re living longer but not necessarily better.
The average life expectancy is rising, but our systems (housing, healthcare, finance, work) haven’t kept pace. We need to reimagine aging as a design challenge, not a medical inevitability.
Because the current narrative sucks.
"Retirement = decline"
"Aging = irrelevant"
"Old = invisible"
Let’s be honest, the cultural script around aging is outdated and uninspiring. If we want different outcomes, we need a different story.
See You There
We can’t wait to bring this conversation to SXSW Sydney and share the stage with such inspiring thinkers. If you’re curious about the future of aging, and how design can turn a “problem” into a platform for innovation, we’d love to see you in the room.
Tuesday 14 October, 12.15–1.15pm, ICC Sydney Room E3.7.
Because old age isn’t the end. It’s the brief. Let’s design accordingly.