Bio

Pontus Wärnestål (Ph.D) is an award-winning designer and researcher, author, and public speaker with 20+ years of work experience. He works as researcher and lecturer in design and digital service innovation at Halmstad University in Sweden, and as adjunct professor and member of the Board of Design Studies at Woxsen University in India. Pontus is represented by Athenas.se for public speaking engagements, and recently published the book ''Designing AI-Powered Services'' (available in Swedish and English at Studentlitteratur) on the topic of human-centered AI. The book contains 50+ design guidelines for designing AI-powered service experiences. During his Master studies in Cognitive Science at Linköping University, Pontus designed and developed spoken dialogue AI systems for Nokia Home Communications. The work transformed into his Ph.D dissertation on design and development of AI-powered spoken recommender systems. After finishing his Ph.D, Pontus did Interaction and UX Design consultancy work for various clients, including Volvo Cars and web agency Daddy, before joining digital creative agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky Europe where he spearheaded the UX department as Director of User Experience. In 2012, Pontus joined the Informatics department at Halmstad University, researching and teaching as Assistant Professor/Senior Lecturer. Pontus' focus on Health Service Innovation led to award-winning research on peer support for children cancer-survivors (SIGCHI Honorable Mention Award 2014, Livestrong Innovation Prize Winner 2014, Svenska Designpriset nominee 2015). In 2016, Pontus joined design agency inUse and developed the Service Design and human-centered AI offering as Head of Design Directors. Pontus created and directed the Bachelor program Digital Design and Innovation given at Halmstad University in 2013, where he received the Accomplished Teacher Pedagogical Merit degree in 2014, the Associate Professor (Docent) degree in June 2018, and the Excellent Teacher Pedagogical Merit in 2019. He is currently developing design resources and education programs for the industry in the intersection of Service and UX Design and Artificial Intelligence.