Jonathan McFarlane

Jonathan McFarlane brings design thinking to business and product development. After graduating from the University of Sydney with a Masters of Design Science, Jonathan set out to disrupt the perception of ‘the interface’ and how we interact with technology.

This aim started as an art project in 2007 that removed the traditional interface of a piano (the keys) and replaced it with a web camera that translated gesture into music. In 2010 Jonathan co-founded Advanced Control and Acoustics (ACA) that took this further with a focus on controlling the physical world with web technology. In 2012 ACA won Education Project Of The Year (InfoComm) for automating student collaboration experiences across multiple University campuses.

In the same year Jonathan co-founded CoTag Media, which extended the idea of the ‘re-mixed interface’ into online media. This has allowed Jonathan to take these concepts into commercial areas such as retail engagement, digital out-of-home advertising, digital publishing and collaborative content on demand. Currently, Jonathan is working on payment technology that becomes part of the customer’s engagement experience and not something tacked onto the end of the purchasing process. The web is getting physical and Jonathan is adapting the interface as well as how we interact with the world around us.