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If/When Jun 16, 2020

Automated Design: Sketching Out the Future of Design

Show Contributors: Matt Walton, Natasha Luthra, Paul Thies

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By some accounts, Leonardo da Vinci's surviving drawings number in the thousands, meticulously documenting the physical world. Very few of us could on our own approach the output capacity of this genius without some sort of assistance. But what if we were able to leverage artificial intelligence and automation to exponentially increase our options? In this episode of If/When, we discuss AI and automated design with Matt Walton, Oracle's former Chief Design Officer for Artificial and Adaptive Intelligence, and Natasha Luthra, Director of Emerging Technologies at Jacobs.

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Episode notes

Matt Walton’s career has spanned over 28+ years of entrepreneurial and enterprise C-Suite experience, most recently as Oracle’s Chief Design Officer of Adaptive and Artificial Intelligence, focused within ERP/Supply Chain automation. Matt holds multiple patents in Big Data/Analytics and Location-based Supply Chain Logistics. Matt has deep expertise in Supply Chain and Logistics, Fleet and Field Service Management, artificial intelligence and machine learning, product realization, and IP generation. Across his career, he has invented, designed, scaled and managed over 300 individual web, mobile and cloud systems for companies such as AT&T labs, DARPA, McKesson, IBM, John Deere and GE Fleet. Matt’s career has encompassed being an award-winning illustrator, Walt Disney character animator, toy designer, game designer, application designer, product management leader, business strategist and futurist.

Natasha Luthra is the Director of Emerging Technologies at Jacobs. Currently, she runs an Emerging Ideas Innovation program which is focused on incubating transformational ideas, technologies, and tools in parallel to cultivating and validating emerging ideas based on client needs as well as the Jacobs strategic mission, to advance the practice through innovative processes. She has spoken about technology, innovation and architecture at conferences like the Leadership Forum at Autodesk University, BILT NA, BILT Asia, BIMForum and the AIA National Convention. Natasha has been featured in and written articles for the Architect Magazine, YAF Connection and AUGI World. She was also the 2018 Chair for Technology in Architectural Practice, the AIA knowledge community focused on the intersection of technology and architecture. In this capacity, she hosted the 2018 Building Connections Congress in Washington DC, a conference that looked at the themes of the future of design in the age of AI and machine learning.