May 2025: GDTA Spotlight with Arne van Oosterom
Join Arne van Oosterom for a powerful GDTA Spotlight session on 3 essential mindset shifts for the future: curiosity, adaptation, and relationships.
In our last session on June 28th, 2022, at 3:00 pm (CEST) / 09:00 am (EDT), we welcomed our speakers Prof. Dr. Falk Uebernickel, Professor for Design Thinking and Innovation Research at Hasso Plattner Institute, and Dr. Danielly de Paula, Senior Researcher at Hasso Plattner Institute.
Falk and Danielly introduced the key results of the new study report “Design Thinking: a Global Study on Implementation Practices in Organizations. Past – Present – Future“, which they conducted together with Stefanie Gerken.
The study examines how organizations implement Design Thinking. Following the 2015 study by HPI and the Stanford Design Thinking Research Program, this research analyzes progress in Design Thinking practice over the past six years and attempts to outline the future of Design Thinking practice in organizations, focusing on themes such as strategy, process, tools & mindset, impact & measurement, salaries, and more.
Prof. Dr. Falk Uebernickel, Professor for Design Thinking and Innovation Research
Falk is a full professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam. Together with his research team, Falk is interested in generalizing human-centered design and Design Thinking for digital innovations in large organizations. Over the last decade, Falk published several books and numerous peer-reviewed articles on the topic. In 2010 he co-founded the SUGAR network for design innovation – the most prominent university network that professionally applies Design Thinking to corporate design challenges.
Dr. Danielly de Paula, Senior Researcher at Hasso Plattner Institute
Danielly is currently a Senior Researcher at the Chair for Design Thinking and Innovation Research at the Hasso-Plattner-Institut at the Universität Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany. She received a master’s degree in Computer Science from the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Brazil, in 2015, and a Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering from the National University of Ireland – Galway (NUIG), Ireland, in 2019. Over the last ten years, Danielly has been conducting research on implementing, measuring, and steering Design Thinking in organizations. She is originally from Recife, Brazil.
Join Arne van Oosterom for a powerful GDTA Spotlight session on 3 essential mindset shifts for the future: curiosity, adaptation, and relationships.
Martin Schwemmle: “Future Skills Navigator: Upskilling Humankind For a Better Future”
In our January 2026 GDTA Spotlight, Ricardo Ruffo (Founder & CEO of Echos) explores how Artificial Intelligence is reshaping Design Thinking — from crafting outputs to stewarding intelligent systems.
Discover how AI can expand imagination, accelerate experimentation, and help teams reframe problems in entirely new ways.
“Beyond the Prompt – Orchestrating Human-AI Agency”
Who’s really in control when working with AI—you or the tool?
In this upcoming session, we’ll explore how intentionally sharing decision-making between humans and AI leads to better outcomes than simply using more AI. Together, we’ll unpack five modes of human–AI agency and discuss how to stay in the driver’s seat of your own work.
We’re excited to welcome Samuel Tschepe, who brings 15+ years of experience designing impactful learning experiences, with a strong foundation in Design Thinking. His work focuses on helping individuals and teams confidently balance human intuition and AI—not by choosing one over the other, but by blending both with intention.
How can Design Thinking drive real change? Since 2015, Impact Week has evolved from a volunteer initiative into a thriving social enterprise, empowering communities, fostering skills, and sparking impactful social businesses.
In our session held via zoom on February 17th, 2022 at 3:30 pm (CET) / 9:30 am (EST), we welcomed our speaker Jeanne Liedtka from UVA Darden School of Business.
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.
The Global Design Thinking Alliance, in collaboration with the IEEE Standards Association and Vienna University of Economics and Business, invited you to the GDTA Spotlight Special Edition “Value-Based Engineering in Design Thinking,” which took place on March 10th, 2022, from 9:00-11:30 am (EST) / 3:00-5:30 pm (CET) via Zoom.
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.
On June 27th, 2023 we welcomed Vindhya Umapathy, Design Thinking Lead at CMR University (Bangalore, India). She spoke on the topic of “Fostering Design Thinking Mindsets amongst University Students“.
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.
After 16 years of running projects using Design Thinking, teaching it, living it, Arne came to some important conclusions. During this session he shared these moments of clarity and darkness and left participants optimistic, energised and proud to be part of the Design Thinking movement.
On Tuesday, May 21st we held a free interactive 60-minute session with Maria Stashenko & her team form Design Thinking Center Asia. After a brief introduction everyone played a round of their game live online:
Remember the experiments and challenges you faced while starting a new project? Before 2019, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu didn’t dream a small idea would turn into so many new research projects, competitions to encourage students to innovate and the first D-School in Romania.
“Design Thinking is not Enough” – Design thinking has taught a generation of innovators to empathize, ideate, prototype, and test. It has reshaped classrooms, organizations, and how we talk about change. And yet despite decades of user-centered design, we are still failing to meaningfully shift many of the systems we care most about. In this provocative presentation, Agnes Kwek shares the reasons why “great ideas” fail to scale and pilots don’t stick. Drawing on her own experiences of large-scale systems transformation in the public sector, she reframes design thinking as a powerful but incomplete tool. Complex challenges are not user problems; they are system problems. Agnes will share how to design with systems rather than against them. This talk challenges participants to expand their role from problem-solvers to system-shapers. Design thinking set the direction. Systems thinking shows us how to get there. Agnes has over 20 years of career in the Singapore Administrative Service, with a focus on large-scale system transformation. As CEO and founder of MindTheSystem, she has trained over 800 senior executives in managing complex systems. She is based in Paris.
In a discussion with GDTA president Prof. Uli Weinberg and other GDTA members, Linlin Shui, Head of the Design Thinking Innovation Center at the Communication University of China (CUC), shared impressions from China during the Covid-19 pandemic and explained how CUC build a prototype for an online Design Thinking course in only two weeks.