Transform with Design presents examples of creative organizations across industries and geographies, and recounts the stories of how they adapted design thinking to build their innovation capabilities. Written by leading industry experts and design-thinking scholars, the book features ten anecdotal experiences by professionals who detail the implementation of design thinking as it unfolded for them. Contributors share how they navigated the many barriers and obstacles they encountered along the way and describe their experience from early beginnings to the present, revealing valuable lessons for anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation.

Martin Schwemmle: “Future Skills Navigator: Upskilling Humankind For a Better Future”

How passion, collaboration, and persistence turned an idea into a thriving business. Born from one of the first cohorts of the D-School Potsdam, Dark Horse defied the odds to become a sustainable business venture.

At this GDTA session on June 15, 2021, Alejandro Rodriguez, Associate Director for Industrial Design Department at Tecnológico de Monterrey, and his team talked about “Education and Design Thinking: How Tecnológico de Monterrey is applying Design Thinking across all their campus, education and innovation.”

In our talk on February 20th, 2024 four educators from SNS Insitutions Coimbatore, India shared their insights on Design Thinking in education starting with K12 to PhD in several streams. SNS had recently crossed 25yr mark with nearly 14K + student fraternity and nearly 37k+ alma mater. The Design Thinking Framework is applied to improve the quality of teaching methodologies to increase student engagement. For this to come true, one measure introduced is 3P Culture: Purpose, Process, People.

Design Thinking has been reshaping the minds of many students and professionals globally for the past 20 years and is fast becoming the winning mindset that drives innovation and solutions to complex problems of our time. The mindset has seen major support from academia and professional networks with some great expansion over the years.

Western University is a large, public university in Canada with 11 faculties and schools. Since 2013, they have slowly built up the presence of Design Thinking across the university.

Adam Somlai-Fischer, Co-Founder of Prezi, shared how a personal challenge sparked a global storytelling revolution. Discover the magic of spatial visual storytelling, AI’s role in transforming presentations, and the impact of LLMs on visual thinking.

At our GDTA Spotlight session on November 12th, Maria Stashenko, Director, Design Thinking Center Moscow, talked about “Innovation Pace in Times of Pandemic: Research Insights”.

At our GDTA Spotlight session on October 21th, Joann Halpern guided us through a “Designing Your Life” workshop, which has been adapted from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’ book on this subject.

At the GDTA Spotlight session on April 26th, 2023, we welcomed Dr. Linda J. Hickman, Associate of the London School of Economics. She talked about “Design Thinking for Startups.”

At our GDTA Spotlight session on  December 14th, Prof. Dr. André Bresges, Executive Director of the Institute for Physics Didactics at the University of Cologne talked about “Teach to Start Up”. 

In a discussion with GDTA President Uli Weinberg, Ricardo Ruffo and Reinaldo Campos from Echos Innovation Lab in Brazil shared how they are creating online Design Thinking learning experiences between Australia and Brazil.

In our session held via zoom on April 7th, 2022 at 4:00 pm (CEST) / 10:00 am (EDT), we welcomed our speakers Lynne Martin, Strategic Lead for Design for Business at V&A Dundee, and Annie Marrs, Lead Officer at UNESCO City of Design Dundee. Lynne and Annie talked about “Entangled Values: The Power of Networks”.

Join us for a free session of the GDTA Spotlight on Tuesday, June 18th at 9.00 am SAST / 7.00am GMT for “Connecting the African Design Thinking Community: An Emergent Learning Network” with Jenni van Niekerk!

The GDTA Spotlight session on March 23rd, 2023 was about “Art thinking and design thinking in University College Cork: An innovation ‘marriage’ made in heaven.”