Business and design

Aims of the course

Use design thinking methodology to develop a feasible prototype to address the human centred needs.

Develop competences in each of the design thinking phases:
- empathy
- define
- ideate
- prototype
- test
And to develop and nurture design thinking mindsets including human centeredness, radical collaboration, experimentation, learning-by-doing.

Course syllabus

The aim of the course is to facilitate creative thinking of students during a multi-disciplinary real life problem solving. Those opportunities are grounded in needs that occur in all areas of human activities in profit and non-profit markets. The process consists of identifying users' needs, defining business opportunity , creating solutions, developing a prototype of a solution and user testing. The goal is to develop capacity for creative problem solving and helping students build their creative confidence.

The course is based on design thinking methodology that includes the following phases:
- empathy
- define
- ideate
- prototype
- test

Design thinking process draws on methods from engineering and design, and combines them with ideas from the arts, tools from the social sciences, and insights from the business world. The process provides a glue that brings team mates from vastly different fields together around a common goal: make the lives of the people they’re designing for better.

Design thinking revolves around three key phases: inspiration, ideation, and implementation.The phases are not linear; they can take place concurrently and can also be repeated to build up ideas along the continuum of innovation. The design thinking process allows information and ideas to be organized, choices to be made, situations to be improved, and knowledge to be gained.Design thinking is, inherently, a prototyping process powering deep understanding of what people want in their lives as well as what they like (or not) about the way that is made, packaged, marketed, sold, and supported.

Course director(s)