We are honoured to welcome Xerxes Irani as our keynote speaker at UX Camp Calgary.
Xerxes is the Global Director of UX Community and Culture at Google and a third-generation creative whose career spans international ad agencies, design studios, academia, and some of the most influential technology companies in the world. From leading global creative teams at Corbis and Amazon to teaching and mentoring designers for over a decade, his work has shaped how creativity and culture show up in complex organizations.
Having Xerxes join our conference is a meaningful moment for our community. UX Camp has always been about learning from people who care deeply about design as a human practice, not just a set of tools or outputs. Xerxes embodies that spirit. His perspective bridges craft, leadership, education, and culture, and his ability to reflect honestly on creative work resonates with designers at every stage of their careers.
His keynote, I Have No Idea Where the Heck Ideas Come From, invites us into a refreshingly honest conversation about creativity.
This is not a talk about formulas, frameworks, or forcing innovation on demand. Instead, Xerxes explores the uncertainty, curiosity, play, and lived experience that shape how ideas actually emerge. He reflects on moments when ideas resisted structure, arrived unexpectedly, or only made sense in hindsight, experiences many UX designers know well but rarely hear acknowledged onstage.
For designers, this talk feels deeply familiar. We are often asked to produce clarity, justify decisions, and explain every step of our thinking. This keynote creates space for not knowing and reframes uncertainty as a vital part of creative practice rather than something to eliminate.
If you have ever felt blocked, over-rational, burned out, or disconnected from the joy of making things, this keynote will resonate with you. If you lead teams or mentor designers, this provides language and insights you can apply to how you support creative work. And if you love ideas and the strange, human ways they appear, you will feel right at home.
🎟️ Join us at UX Camp Calgary and experience this keynote live.
Come for the ideas, stay for the conversations, the community, and the shared inspiration that comes when designers gather.
Tickets are available now.