Healthspan Transition Innovation Foundry
20 October 2026
CareFactor
A different approach to outdoor media,
for those who care.
Dr Sarah Barns
Co-founder, STORYBOX by Studio ESEM
Fellow, RMIT Centre for Urban Research
What if thiscould be different?
“More and more of our public spaces are being filled with digital screens full of advertising. Not only does this turn us into consumers in public spaces rather than citizens, it's also a real lost opportunity to expand how we experience places through new media interfaces.”Dr Sarah Barns · Media Architecture Biennale · Bangkok 2025
What if thiscould be different?
“More and more of our public spaces are being filled with digital screens full of advertising. Not only does this turn us into consumers in public spaces rather than citizens, it's also a real lost opportunity to expand how we experience places through new media interfaces.”Dr Sarah Barns · Media Architecture Biennale · Bangkok 2025
A different approachto outdoor media
Digital innovation means programmable out of home media: buyers and sellers of attention in public spaces. The unit sold is an impression: a likelihood to see, priced per moment.
Outdoor media
- Sells attention to the highest bidderauctions, intermediaries, a slice of revenue
- Targets peoplemobile location data, cameras that estimate age and gender
- Councils take a cut of salesand lose the say over what is shown
- Funded by advertisersno appropriation to cut
STORYBOX
Connecting precincts with cultural, educational and community voices through a story-led approach.
We treat audiences as citizens, not consumers.
A PlacePortal
A place’s own channel in public space: a cube of screens in the square, programmed with the stories of the people who care for it. A women’s shelter, dance companies and schools were the first storytellers.
- 2020Launched with the ABC, Western Sydney University, City of Parramatta and local cultural organisations
- FeaturesLocal archives, video stories, a MoodRing sentiment tool and activity monitors
- 57%of people had noticed STORYBOX in the Parramatta pilot, against about 38% for a successful billboard
Platformsfor places
Twenty years watching platforms and data reshape cities, then building something that gives value back to place instead of extracting it.
Six years ofrestorying places
In theirown words
“I see a future. A clean future. A breathable future… We are a country full of trees and smiling faces. People finally chose their legs over machines.”
Mariya · Climate Futures with Sydney Story Factory
Partnerssince 2020
Councils, precincts and government
- City of Parramatta
- City of Sydney
- Inner West Council
- Canterbury-Bankstown Council
- Port Macquarie-Hastings Council
- ACT Government, City Renewal Authority
- NSW Government
- Destination NSW
- Development Victoria
- Mirvac, South Eveleigh
- Darling Square
Cultural institutions and collections
- ABC
- Australian Museum
- Australian National Maritime Museum
- National Gallery of Australia
- National Museum of Australia
- National Film and Sound Archive
- Museums of History NSW
- Art Gallery of New South Wales
- Sydney Opera House
- Bankstown Arts Centre
- Craft ACT
- Inner West Museum of Rugby League
- Birds of Australia tour: Newcastle Museum, Orange Regional Museum, Tamworth Regional Gallery, Blue Mountains Theatre and Community Hub
Universities and research
- Western Sydney University
- UNSW Sydney, Diversified
- University of Sydney
- RMIT University
- Australian National University
- University of Adelaide, Re-naturing Cities
- CSIRO
- AFTRS
Festivals
- Vivid Sydney
- Sydney Writers’ Festival
Community, arts and First Nations partners
- Sydney Story Factory
- Parramatta Women’s Shelter
- Bangarra Dance Theatre
- Wagana Aboriginal Dancers
- Jannawi Dance Clan
- FORM Dance Projects
- Dance Makers Collective
- CuriousWorks
- Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation
- Parramatta Artists Studios
- Placemaking Leaders with Studio THI
- The Goulburn Group
- Friends of Toongabbie Creek
In theirown words
“There is profound healing power in human connection.”
Alison · We Care, RMIT 2024“In the year 2042 the trees cover almost every part of the soil.”
Mays · Climate Futures with Sydney Story Factory“Parramatta bus stops are strangely familial… I met Fatima on the 810.”
Amiritha · Parramatta Tiny Stories, 2020“We need to slow down our life to embrace what's going on in nature.”
Evan · We Care, RMIT 2024“The STORYBOX experience is a kind of slow wow. It sort of creeps up on you.”
Tim Low, author · Birds of Australia, Australian Museum, 2025“STORYBOX is such a great way of telling those stories on the street and inviting people in to connect with Bangarra.”
Kye Maurer · Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2025Stories have the capacity to change hearts and minds
“…a sustained and measured contribution to civic infrastructure that replaces commercial broadcast logic on public screens with community storytelling and First Nations content across more than 50 programs since 2020… the measurement model itself represents a design innovation by capturing appreciation and recommendation rates without surveillance tracking.”
Civic infrastructure rather than advertising media
“…a thoughtful reimagining of public digital media that prioritises participation, culture and community over commercial attention… the design has moved beyond a one-off activation into a credible public media system.”
A differentunit of attention
Not “noticed the ad, might buy”. Engaged in culture. Curious about the world.Citizen capabilities, after Nussbaum, rather than consumer intent
Engaged
Aware
Connected
Socially engaged
How are youfeeling today?
The instrument behind the portrait
MoodRing asks one question of everyone who passes, and builds a portrait of how a place feels, without a face, a phone or a name.
A new chapterCare Factor
A restorying chapter for STORYBOX: new functionalities, new focus, new funding model.
Not just a boxbut a system
One Place Portalmany touchpoints
Know the placePromote what it needs
What the place is like
What to promote here
Promoted this month
“…the measurement model itself represents a design innovation by capturing appreciation and recommendation rates without surveillance tracking.”
Jury · 2026 Australian Good Design Awards · Winner, Social Impact
Sense, directand reward care
What the Place Portal holds for each place, and how care turns into something people can use.
What the place is doing to people
- Urban heat and shadeopen data and sensors, street by street
- Tree canopy against the local targetand where the gaps are
- Walkability and densitycar dependence, gathering space, renters
- Community infrastructurehalls, libraries, sheds, courts, gardens, and how far people are from them
- Participationanonymous counts at the Totem, responses, giving, MoodRing. The place, never the person
A directory of local wellbeing
- Walk clubs, chair yoga, tai chi, swim groups
- GPs, physios, pharmacies, community health, headspace
- Social prescribing link workers can refer straight into it
- Storytelling circles, sheds, gardens, planting days
- Curated by the Place Circle. Health-aligned only. Never gambling, alcohol or unhealthy food
Care that comes back to you
- Insurers and mutuals offer member benefits for taking parta walk club, a class, a planting day
- Care Factor contributions return as credits at health-aligned local storesthe cafe by the walk club, the pharmacy, the bike shop
- Tap to Give: every dollar to the causeSTORYBOX never holds the money
- Sponsors fund matched giving, not airtime
Two lenseson one place
The determinants of health and wellbeing meet in places. Care IQ reads two of them together, because neither is enough alone.
Capabilities describe how people are doing. Place characteristics describe what the place is doing to them. Where they meet tells a place what to do first.
Capabilities
How people are doing in a place
- Aware and curiousnoticing the place, learning from it
- Engagedtaking part, and knowing they can
- Connectedto place, family, community and nature
- Urge to createcontributing their own stories and work
Place
What the place is doing to people
- Heat and shadeurban heat, tree canopy, cool refuges
- Walkabilitystreet design and how much people move
- Density and gatheringhow many people, and where they can meet
- Nature and airgreen space, biodiversity, air quality
What’s the care factor?Care IQ as a unit of value worth cultivating
Instead of extracting value for consumption, use insights to build the care economy in place
Care IQ is what a place learns about itself over time, built from what people choose to contribute and do in public: stories, responses, giving and anonymous counts. It sits beside clinical measures, and reaches communities that surveys often miss.
People · capabilities
Place · against its targets
Portrait 02 · a year on
What changed
Health is madein places
We are addressing the determinants of health. They are well known: strong social connection, access to nature, physical activity and a sense of purpose. The research behind each is firming up, much of it in Australian universities.
“Health is created and lived by people within the settings of their everyday life”Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion · WHO, 1986
Social connection
Nature
Physical activity
Purpose
Funded like outdoor mediagoverned by those who care
Creating a healthy market
ecosystem for care-fullpublic space media
The pre-read names positive health advertising as one of nine convenor hypotheses. Care Factor is the infrastructure that makes it a market rather than a campaign.
Outdoor media
- Sells attention to the highest bidderauctions, intermediaries, a slice of revenue
- Targets peoplemobile location data, cameras that estimate age and gender
- Councils take a cut of salesand lose the say over what is shown
- Funded by advertisersno appropriation to cut
Care Factor
- Promotes the local care each place needshealth providers, regenerators, community groups. Credited, never advertised
- Senses the place, not the personheat, shade, canopy, air, and what people choose to share
- Councils host and take a care sharepermission, not funding
- Underwritten by insurers, mutuals and super fundswho support it but never choose what is shown
CommonStandards
Every STORYBOX program is underpinned by Common Standards.
Some are non-negotiable. Others are chosen by the place, and wired into the Place Portal so a place can see how it is tracking over time.
Always on
Chosen by the place
Who paysand the risks
Payer · funded like outdoor media, without the advertising
Assumptionsand the risks
What the first places will test, and the rules we hold whatever the funding looks like.
Assumptions we will test
- Anchors pay for civic reach, as cultural institutions already do for STORYBOX programs
- Places publish more for themselves over time, so curation costs fall
- Place data is available as open data for heat, canopy and walkability in most council areas
Risks, and how we hold them
- Privacy: sense the place, never the person. No cameras that analyse people, no device IDs kept
- Over-claiming health impact: a portrait, not a clinical score, read with an evaluation partner
- Cultural material: ICIP and CARE always on; First Nations material is never auto-published
- Funder dependence: many anchors, hosts and sponsors, and a stop rule if they won't renew
Straightanswers
Payer
Incentives to engage and activate
Health insurers, mutuals and super funds support incentives to engage and activate. Councils and place precincts host, on a sliding scale for the cost of the asset.
Value
Shared, and visible
People find and join local activity where it is needed most. Community groups gain reach. Anchors gain civic reach, recognition and a portrait of the places they back.
Mechanism
Promote what each place needs
Heat, canopy, walkability and activity decide what comes first: walk clubs, gathering, or shade. This informs what services are advertised for local benefit.
Delivery
Care Factor program
A Care Factor program delivered via STORYBOX assets: the Place Portal, the Totem and the Cube, hosted by councils and place precincts.
Evidence
Care IQ portraits
Composite indicators of care-full places. Success is measured from market based activity: partner engagement, activity and funded partnerships.
Durability
Nothing to defund
No appropriation. Many backers, hosts and sponsors, the way outdoor media outlasts governments, without the advertising.
Who'sin?
- Community and creative partners lead the story
- A health innovation precinct paired with an urban precinct, on the model of the Parramatta program
- A precinct partner who agrees to host, on a sliding scale for the cost of the asset
- A health evaluation partnership to build the Care IQ capability
- Anchors to support the incentives: health insurers, mutuals and super funds
Success is measured from market based activity. If the market does not renew, the model has failed its test, and we stop.
Sense the placenot the person
A Totem in public space and a Place Portal behind it, under STORYBOX’s Civic AI Value Framework and Common Standards.
Programmatic outdoor media reads people
- Mobile location datawho passed, where they came from, where they went next
- Cameras that estimate age and genderto price each moment for an advertiser
STORYBOX reads the place
- Place dataheat, shade, canopy and air, from open data and environmental sensors
- Civic datawhat people choose to share: stories, responses and giving
- Anonymous countsmade anonymous on the device, nothing kept that identifies anyone
Curated with carefor every place
Each place's program is curated with local partners: health and wellbeing providers, regenerators, storytellers and community groups. Local providers can sponsor programs and be credited, but never advertise. Gambling, alcohol and unhealthy food are never shown.
Health and wellbeing
Access local health providers, wellbeing initiatives and community events.
Regeneration stories
Be part of the regeneration story in your area.
Local regenerators
Funding initiatives for local care.
Storytellers and community groups
Places are full of stories. Everyday voices build belonging, and belonging builds health.