SAP Impulse 25 - Design Festival

Born from a desire to outgrow usual corporate design events, Impulse was initiated as a playground, a place to get inspired, and a pulse check on where we are and where we want to go as a design community. Unlike typical design conferences that often stay within the boundaries of tools, trends, and case studies, the event challenged foundational assumptions about technology, collaboration, space, and even emotion, while offering perspectives that were as provoking as they were inspiring.The festival kicked off on a sunny Thursday morning with an eclectic set of keynote speakers. We heard from Horst Hoertner about explorations the Ars Electronica Future Lab is making by using AI to build upon and collaborate with art. Tim Reusch provided a closer look at how Vitra goes beyond designing office chairs to conceptualizing and realizing entire workspaces that are functional, inspiring, and engaging enough to be thought of as “destinations.” After a short coffee break in the courtyard, we wrapped up the morning with two lighthearted, yet thoroughly thought provoking talks. Andreas Refsgaard walked us through his delightfully funny yet provocative projects, all of which use AI as a tool to uncover something about the human condition in the 21st century. The morning closed with an inspiring talk from Katrin Hansmeier on how humor and joy can be used as a tool to diffuse difficult situations in the workplace.After lunch, attendees joined workshops covering a number of hands-on topics, and activities that spanned tooling, design practices, and culture. In addition to the workshops, there were booths set up to play and interact with tools like Figma, Adobe Firefly, Apple VisionPro, and more.