Interview with Joris Vreeke. Faculty for Design and Innovation at Helvetic Tech.
Interview with Joris Vreeke. Faculty for Design and Innovation at Helvetic Tech.
Joris, you’ve had a career spanning art, design, technology, and education. How do you personally define innovation?
Joris Vreeke: For me, innovation is about transformation. It’s not just creating something new, but taking an existing situation and turning it into a preferred one. That applies to a classroom environment, a cultural heritage site, or a complex AI research project. The essence of innovation is bridging disciplines, connecting human needs with technical possibilities.
You’ve worked on both artistic and highly technical projects. How do those two worlds inform each other?
Joris Vreeke: Art teaches you to see differently, to challenge assumptions and conventions. Technology, on the other hand, gives you the tools to materialize those challenges at scale. When I work with AI or design user experiences, I’m always drawing from that artistic background, asking “what if?” and pushing beyond functional solutions into meaningful ones.
You’re currently working on a Horizon Europe-funded ludonarrative engine for cultural heritage sites. What makes that project innovative?
Joris Vreeke: Cultural heritage is often treated as static: museums, archives, guided tours. Our project asks: how can we make these spaces interactive, living narratives? By combining ludology, the study of play, with narrative structures, we’re building a system where visitors don’t just consume history, they experience it as a participatory story. That’s innovation because it shifts heritage from something preserved in glass to something embodied in play.
You’ve also led technical teams in AI, NLP, and computer vision. What’s your philosophy for driving innovation in a team setting?
Joris Vreeke: Curiosity and collaboration. Teams innovate best when they’re diverse in skills and perspectives, and when the culture rewards experimentation without fear of failure. As a Scrum Master and design lead, I focused on giving people the freedom to explore, while still maintaining enough structure to turn ideas into working prototypes. Innovation is not chaos; it’s guided play.
Many people see innovation as disruptive. Do you agree?
Joris Vreeke: Sometimes, yes. But disruption is not the only form of innovation. Incremental innovation, small changes that steadily improve outcomes, is just as valuable. For example, in UX education, I innovate not by reinventing design every semester, but by introducing new ways of thinking, new exercises, new technologies that enrich how students approach problems.
You’ve received awards for innovation at Dublin City University. What’s one lesson you’ve learned from those experiences?
Joris Vreeke: Recognition is nice, but the real lesson is that innovation has to connect with people. An idea only becomes innovative when it impacts users, businesses, or communities. The awards were a byproduct of creating tools and collaborations that others found genuinely useful. Innovation is measured by adoption, not invention.
Looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of innovation in your fields?
Joris Vreeke: I’m fascinated by the convergence of AI, design, and storytelling. As AI gets more context-aware and multimodal, we’ll be able to design experiences that adapt to individuals in real time, whether that’s education, cultural engagement, or digital media. That opens up possibilities for more personalized, meaningful interactions between people and technology.
And finally, what advice would you give to students and professionals who want to be innovators?
Joris Vreeke: Stay curious. Don’t let boundaries between fields stop you. Learn from art if you’re an engineer, learn from code if you’re a designer. Innovation thrives in the overlap. And always remember: the goal isn’t just novelty, it’s improvement.