Web Directions Year round learning for product, design and engineering professionals

All the things that seem to matter

It feels like a rapidly changing world but is it?
The Dark Swan Institute founder Tea Uglow takes a macro look backwards and forwards at the web and society to make some predictions about the future of the internet. A breakdown of the zeitgeist identifying precedents, patterns and potentials – the trends we saw coming, and what we should see coming.

Find out at Web Directions Summit.

About Tea Uglow

Tea Uglow is a writer, LGBTQ activist, and a speaker on innovation, inclusion, and digital futures.

Tea founded Creative Labs for Google in Sydney (2011) and London (2007) and became globally known for work focused on projects with cultural organisations that enabled artists, writers, dancers and other cultural practitioners to digitally augment or interpret their work. As a queer activist she authored a compilation of LGBTQ activist speeches called Loud and Proud, and is the very proud co-author of the trans pride flag emoji despite the 4 and a half years it took to achieve something that seemed so obvious.

Her writing includes: Loud & Proud [Quarto, 2020] and A Curiosity of Doubts [Penguin, 2016]. In 2018 she was awarded a Peabody for digital storytelling for ‘Editions at Play’ a series of digital books with Visual Editions including We Kiss the Screens [2019] & A Universe Explodes [2018].

Tea currently advocates for mental health, disability, LGBTQ and transgender awareness and mentors queer, female and other intersectional creators and writers worldwide. She likes pop-physics, neuroscience for beginners, queer twitter, and shopping.
Her pronouns are She/They

Non-executive roles:
Tea has judged creativity awards worldwide. In 2023 she was President of Glass at Cannes Lions.
She has been a trustee of D&AD, the Biennale of Sydney, Award Australia, and ACMI in Melbourne.
She is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale; the ABC Arts Advisory Panel; Edinburgh Festival Culture Summit; and the Global Science Gallery Leonardo Group.