Andrew McWilliams

I am a program leader experienced in emerging technologies, software development, art production, and tech sector sustainability.

Thoughtworks Arts, an incubator I co-founded for artist-led emerging technology collaborations, activated more than 50 projects with over 400 contributors over seven years. The program has been credited in Forbes, WIRED, Engadget, and the New York Times, and has exhibited at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.

ClimateAction.tech, a program I co-founded to help drive sustainability initiatives in the tech sector, has 10,000+ members globally. The program, under independent leadership today, has been awarded a Prix Ars Electronica Award for Digital Humanity.

A man speaking on a large stage in front of a screen showing a realtime feed of the speech and a large red TEDx logo.
Speaking on stage at TEDxVilnius, Lithuania.

The programs I initiate and direct tackle diverse themes, enabling technologist practitioner communities to collaborate on critical issues including projects in climate change, biometrics, transhumanism, volumetric video, robotics and AI.

Starting out my career as a technical software developer, I went on to practice art production using interactive technology and media. This led to community convening, followed by program design and execution, bringing together communities to focus on hardware hacking, art and technology, and the role of the tech sector in the climate crisis.

A triple panel image, showing a human dancer with a 16-foot robot (right), a grid of black and white portrait images with the human subjects erased (middle, and a point cloud image (right), stamped with the logo for Thoughtworks Arts.
Projects incubated at Thoughtworks Arts.

With more than two decades hands-on experience as an artist, technologist and community catalyst, my approach is to incubate projects by building around a shared identity in which we as practitioners and stakeholders see ourselves.

I believe in the power of guiding individuals to find authentic expression through personal contributions, to see those contributions as key components of a larger whole, and to cultivate collective ownership of momentum toward a shared vision of success.

A double panel image, with a photograph of a wall-mounted screen with a blood red visualization (left) and a close-up screenshot of the visualization (right). The visualization is a stylized flat graphic with dynamic splotches of red and black color travelling vertically through a stone-like artery. The screens both also show the same number '87' as an overlay to the visualization.
Insulin, an artwork visualizing realtime blood glucose data.