Electrifying and animating innovation with design thinking

The essence of design thinking is realizing creative solutions through immersion in a target market--identifying desires and pain points of consumers with empathy, resulting in new products and services that are user-centric and innovative. In his 4-day course spanning two weekends, Prof. Goi guides participants through two real-life case studies by inviting the protagonists to the classroom, who set before the students a wicked problem to be tackled through group collaboration.

Last weekend, on days 1 and 2, course participants were introduced to Mr. Mizutani, founder of Doudoudoujin, a manga platform startup struggling with attracting users despite having developed an exciting new platform for creators and consumers of manga alike; this weekend, participants are introduced to Prof. Umejima of Keio University and project leader for the International Electrotechnical Commission, who specializes in energy and mobile communication systems and entrepreneurial education, and commissions new business projects revolving around energy production and usage.

Learning to work within diverse groups alongside students new and old instills communication and strategic thinking skills, as well as social skills that enable successful navigation of new workplaces and situations.