During three intense days, students were invited to address the challenges related to the common theme "Rethinking the future of work. Putting the human back in" using the design thinking methodology.
Used by innovative companies such as Decathlon, Intel, Accenture, and Airbnb, design thinking makes it possible to provide innovative solutions to problems that are often hard to solve.
"Using a practical approach, this design thinking seminar enabled students to put themselves in the shoes of their users to understand their problems and then sketch, conceive, and develop a solution by brainstorming ideas and prototyping the best one," explains Francesca Melillo, an assistant professor from the Innovation Academy who was responsible for the Design Thinking seminar. She adds: "Along with the team of teachers, whom I warmly thank for their work, I congratulate the winners for their creative effort and all the students for the energy and enthusiasm they brought to the class. If there is one takeaway I wish students would keep in mind, it's this: what seems impossible at the beginning can become possible if you have the motivation and work hard for it."
A collaborative digital platform
Students were able to use the Mural collaborative digital platform during the seminar, which enabled them to work simultaneously on the different design thinking stages of their team project. At the end of the seminar, the teams had to present their work in the form of a video and the students and instructors voted for a winning team for each country.