About Orange Gate Labs
A design and advisory practice exploring what happens to human judgement when people, organizations, and AI meet.
Why I’m Here
Human judgement doesn’t survive by default when AI enters the picture.
Understanding what threatens it and finding ways to protect it is only the start. I turn those insights into tools and interventions designed to help people exercise better judgement when working with AI.
Principal
Meet Janneke
I’ve spent more than two decades working at the intersection of technology, people and organizations. From enterprise-wide transformation in financial services to experimenting with social robots in an innovation lab, I’ve always been interested in what happens when new technologies meet the real world. In 2019, I took that conversation to the National University of Singapore with a talk called For the Love of Robots, exploring the possibilities of living and working with smart machines.
When conversational AI arrived, I realized I didn’t understand the technology well enough to contribute to the conversation in the way I wanted. So I went back to university.
Three years later, my research has brought me to a question I can’t leave alone: what happens to our ability to think, question and decide for ourselves as we increasingly rely on AI, and what can we do about it?
Orange Gate Labs is where I bring that experience, research and curiosity together. It’s a place to ask difficult questions, experiment with ideas and build things that make a difference.
Philosophy
Human Judgement. By Design.
Design for judgement
AI won’t automatically make us better thinkers. I design tools, workflows and experiences deliberately, to help people think, question and decide for themselves.
Could ≠ Should
Just because AI can do something doesn’t mean it should. Understand the people, context and consequences before deciding what to build or automate.
I have to try
Waiting for all the answers isn’t an option. I experiment carefully, learn in practice, and keep people’s judgement at the centre.
Legacy
People, Technology & Practice
Orange Gate Labs builds on Orange Gate Consulting, a practice with a team of up to 16 people. Our work explored what happens when people encounter new technologies. How do we adopt them, adapt to them and change the ways we work and interact?
From large-scale technology transformation in financial services to building and testing social robots, we combined thinking with making. Understanding the human side of technological change has always been central to my work.
Here are a few examples of where that curiosity has taken me.
HestaHub
Could technology help older adults stay connected and independent at home? HestaHub explored the idea of the home as an interactive part of a social ecosystem supporting aging in place. Showcased at Collision 2019.
Saffi
Could a robot make someone’s first encounter with emerging technology fun rather than intimidating?
Saffi was a social media correspondent designed to spark curiosity and create positive first experiences with robots.
Elly
What happens when a robot becomes a coworker?
Created for BMO's Elevate presence, Elly was a robot talent scout designed to engage visitors, generate buzz and connect with prospective technology talent.
Let’s Talk
Have an interesting problem, an idea worth exploring, or a conversation you think we should be having?
I'm always interested in meeting people who are thinking about what AI means for how we live and work, especially those who want to do something about it.