Design Thinking for Social Impact

Catalog description

Design thinking is quickly becoming a fundamental tool for innovation. It is a creative problem-solving methodology that can help people find new, creative solutions to increasingly complex global challenges. The skill set is particularly useful for social innovators working in ambiguous and rapidly changing environments. Design Thinking for Social Innovation teaches students to develop empathy for stakeholders, generate innovative ideas, and prototype and refine those ideas so they can be successfully implemented. The course introduces a deeply human process that taps into abilities we all have but get overlooked by more conventional problem-solving practices. Design thinking is something you can learn only by doing, so we’ll get out into the world and tackle a design challenge of our own together. Students will develop product/business/service/experience concepts using techniques such as empathy, problem definition, ideation, concept refinement and prototyping. You will learn design tools and techniques to generate and communicate innovative solutions. At the end of this class you’ll have a new set of skills to apply to any challenge you face and the tools and techniques to infuse your day-to-day work with creativity.