The Design Thinking recipe for Innovation using Technology
From Emergency Ambulance Innovation to Redesigning experience for movie streaming beyond Netflix (think of combining Airbnb and Bookmyshow.com in India). Ycenter combines the power of Design Thinking, Curiosity, Creative Problem Solving and Technology Entrepreneurship to build rapid prototypes for big ideas.
Ycenter team has been working with Wisdom High International School in Nashik in collaboration with weRsolar since December 2018. We begin this collaboration with a focus on teaching how to think critically and build a solid problem solving expertise among high school students.
In last 6 months, we realized that if given the right direction and pushing the envelope with these students, we can co-create solutions for real issues. Earlier this month, we were invited for a weekend workshop at WHIS which saw 17 participants ranging from an age group of 15–45. These allows for a perfect diversity of experience combined with raw energy and a truly interdisciplinary approach to problem solving.
Design Thinking in India has started to gain traction amongst large companies, especially product driven. And we have a fair share of partners we work with in the corporate space, but we are equally excited about the possibilities of bringing this framework to a much younger audience. This creates a solid fundamental skill set and a knack for non-linear, intuitive and humanitarian thinking which helps these students as they advance in their career from college campus to corporate campus or startup garage. One of the parents in our workshop, mentioned how this experience has transformed her son even at home, where he uses design thinking to help resolve conflicts and manage daily chores for his grandmother. While we are not entirely surprised by knowing this, what’s truly remarkable is the ability for parents to recognize this new pattern of thinking in their children and truly invest in giving them a global experiential education.
During this weekend workshop, participants with little to no coding knowledge were able to create User Journey flows, Prototyping them for Mobile Screens and actually present these ideas in the form of a Story to the audience. Here are some snapshots from our participant projects creating in just a couple of hours.
Where do we go from here? How do we sustain this ecosystem? How do we amplify this experience and use technology to make it unique for participants, their parents and for the society? Ycenter, for this, launches a unique 6-month program — Global Innovation Fellows.
This program continues the learning of our participants beyond a weekend workshop onto their cellphones and laptops. The first cohort of this program will be launched on July 29th and will give participants access to Ycenter’s Online learning platform — EPIC. The fellows get access to videos, activities, tool kits, content for problem solving using Entrepreneurial and most importantly a monthly online Town-hall meetup where they get to present the progress on their projects and get feedback from our Global mentors in USA, Africa and Europe.
We believe e-learning is not about taking classes online, it is about redefining how to harness technology to truly build a community of learners and problem solvers that learn from each other, that can share their best practices and connect with global mentors. E-learning in India where “e” is truly experiential and engaging.
