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:
„Playing the Future: A Trend Watching Game“ created by Design Thinking Center Asia and Lab Wonderfull.
It´s not just a game—it’s a powerful tool for designing cutting-edge products and services based on emerging global trends! Based on Design Thinking principles and approved in many sessions in various industries it is a very fast idea generation tool.
Maria Stashenko: is Director at Design Thinking Center and Co-Founder of Wonderfull Laboratory. She is an expert in design thinking and human-centered design. Maria has over seventeen years of experience and has completed more than 500 projects with global companies such as SAP, Novartis, BASF, Adobe, and IBM. Her work helps companies with digital transformation and service development. Maria is a Harvard Business Review author and speaker, and she is the scientific editor for Russian editions of books on design thinking. Maria is an alumna of HS Anhalt (Germany) and Staffordshire University (United Kingdom).
The D-School Potsdam is stepping into a new chapter! With a fresh brand identity and an updated teaching structure, they continue to push the boundaries of Design Thinking education. At the GDTA Spotlight: “Crafting Tomorrow”, Monika Frech, co-head of the academic program team shared
At the GDTA PowWow on April 30th, 2021 Claudio Dell’Era, Associate Professor in Design Strategy and Director of the Observatory “Design Thinking for Business” of the School of Management at Politecnico di Milano talked about “Transformations in Design Thinking: from Creative Ideating to Critical Reframing“.
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.”
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 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.
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 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.
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 his session, Indigenous Inspirations: 5 Design Lessons from 5 Tribal Women, Anirban uncovers timeless, empowering design principles drawn from the lived experiences of tribal women across India—and what they reveal about building more sustainable, human-centered futures.
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.”
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
In a discussion with GDTA President Uli Weinberg, Richard Perez, Founding Director of the Hasso Plattner School of Design Thinking (d-school) at the University of Cape Town, and Faculty Members Luke Doman and Mark Jackson talked about how they adapted their programs during Covid-19, using technology that is accessible for all students, and shared their vision for the future of the d-school at UCT.