Socially responsible design

With over 20 years of design, technology and product experience I enable socially aware early-stage startups and fast-growing scale-ups minimise waste, grow, and make a positive difference.

I’ve worked at all levels in private and public sectors and collaborated with teams in the US, UK, and EMEA (that’s Europe, Middle East, and Asia). I help the businesses I believe in use digital technology to improve the way we live and the impact on our planet – right now, this means focussing on health, energy, biodiversity, human rights and education. Clients include Australian Red Cross, World Mosquito Program, Chargefox, VicEmergency, & Bonigi Monitoring.

Key projects

Covidence – Supporting world leading institutions on their mission to create knowledge

Matt helped Covidence scale from 100 users to over 150,000 users across Australia, EMEA, and North America using lean design and research. The platform is now self-sustaining (and growing), and is used by some of the world’s leading academic institutions including Harvard, Yale, Oxford.

World Mosquito Program – Helping communities around the world prevent the spread of mosquito-borne disease

Matt and the team at Cogent helped the World Mosquito Program scale by designing and developing an end-to-end solution to safely track and trace the effect of the Wolbachia bacteria on the mosquito population in low-dengue incidence zones in Australia. This set up the team to scale to Vietnam and Brazil.

Bonigi – Monitoring human rights in immigration detention

Research, strategy and design for Bonigi Monitoring – a platform allowing visitors to immigration detention centres to record data on immigration detention living conditions. Until recently, Matt also held a position on the Board of Advisors for Bonigi specialising in Design and Technology.

Chargefox – Foundational design and research for Australia’s largest EV charging network

Reliable and available charging infrastructure was the number one barrier to preventing electric vehicle uptake in Australia. And now it’s not. Matt drove the founding design for the Chargefox mobile application and the Chargefox brand now used across Australia.

Australian Red Cross – Unlocking greater volunteer participation across the social sector using Web 3.0 and blockchain

Research and Design strategy for a social enterprise startup funded by the Australian Red Cross. Focussing on proving out problem/solution fit, Matt played a pivotal role in helping shape how the Australian Red Cross could use Web 3.0 technology and blockchain for good.