GDTA Spotlight: Reflections from the Global Design Thinking Festival
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.
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.
In our last session on July 26th, 2022, we invited you to “Celebrate Design Thinking Coming of Age” with us. We updated you on the Global Design Thinking Festival, which has three events taking place from September to October 2022.
Claudia Nicolai gave you an insight on the Design Thinking ImpAct Conference: 15 years of Design Thinking at HPI Potsdam, happening on September 15-16th, 2022. We will be looking back at the last 15 years of Design Thinking activities at HPI and discuss how we can further shape business and society with the innovation approach!
Secondly, Claudia Nicolai and Sherif Osman presented you the Global Design Thinking Challenge “Sustainable Learning in Schools” from September 8th to October 14th, 2022. The challenge will be to develop creative solutions tackling the 4th SDG: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”
Last but not least, Richard Perez and Jenni van Niekerk talked about the 3rd d.confestival “Design Thinking Matters Now,” taking place from October 12th to 14th, 2022 at the Hasso Plattner d-school Afrika at the University of Cape Town in its newly built home.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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“.
In this session, Jeanne Liedtka, United Technologies Corporation Professor of Business Administration, University of Virginia – Darden School of Business, discussed her upcoming book “Experiencing Design: The Innovator’s Journey”.
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”.
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.
In this session, Dr. Assaf Krebs, Dr. Yigal David, and Daniel Altman of GDTA member institution Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art talked about: “Intermediate spaces – Two perspectives on engineering, design, Design Thinking, and life itself. From Sound Engineering to Human Surfaces”.
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.
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.
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”.
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”
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.
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.