GDTA Spotlight with CMR University
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“.
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.”

Alejandro Rodríguez, Design Thinking Initiative – National Leader. Alejandro is School of Architecture, Design and Art’s professor at Mexico City, since 2016 he is the responsible to coordinate all design thinking activities (professors, academics, training and consultancy).
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“.
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.
In our session held via zoom on Mai 12th, 2022 at 3:00 pm (CEST) / 09:00 am (EDT), we welcomed our speaker Mugendi K. M’Rithaa, Professor of Industrial Design at Machakos University. Mugendi talked about “Empathy and Community: Human-Centered Design in Afrika”
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.
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:
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.
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!
“Beyond the Prompt – Orchestrating Human-AI Agency”
At our GDTA Spotlight session on May 23rd, 2023, we welcomed Guido Caicedo, Executive Director of i3lab, Dr. Sharon Guamán-Quintanilla, Academic Coordinator, and Isabel Alcívar, Lecturer and Design Thinking Facilitator. They discussed about “Turning freshmen into DThinkers.”
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.
In 2022, the Global Design Thinking Alliance (GDTA) set out to celebrate Design Thinking coming of age, as well as the discipline’s global expansion.
On April 30th, 2024 Prof. Jeanne Liedtka from University of Virginia shared the insight from her most recent book, The Experimentation Field Book: A Step-by-Step Project Guide, co-authored with Natalie Foley, David Kester and Elziabeth Chen, published in February, 2024.
At our online session on May 18, 2021 Matt Parkinson, Professor and Director of The Learning Factory, College of Engineering at Penn State University, and Jessica Menold, Assistant Professor of Engineering Design at Penn State University, talked about the Design Thinking process that contributed to the development of a new university building, dedicated to Design Thinking and prototyping.
In our session held via zoom on March 10th. 2022, from 9:00 – 11:30 am (EST) / 3:00 – 5:30 pm (CET) via Zoom, we collaborated with the IEEE Standards Association and Vienna University of Economics and Businesss to talk about “Value-Based Engineering in Design Thinking”. For more information about the event, agenda and speakers please visit the GDTA Spotlight Special website. […]
Michael Lewrick, bestselling author of The Design Thinking Playbook and AI and Innovation, leads an inspiring session exploring how Artificial Intelligence is transforming Design Thinking practices worldwide.
The last online session took place on November 21st, 2023, at 3:00 p.m. (CET). We welcomed our speaker, Can Güvenir, Design Manager and lecturer at Yaşar University.