Design thinking is a human-centered, solution-oriented approach to entrepreneurial innovation that aims at designing products and services that more accurately address user needs by factoring into design user experiences, addressing real, as opposed to perceived, needs. Design thinking achieves this through a process of empathy that documents user reactions, feedback, and feelings while they engage with a particular solution; accurate problem definition that helps focus on real user needs; ideation or brainstorming, that encourages the introduction of broad ideas towards addressing a challenge; prototyping of solutions in a manner that allows users to engage with them; and evaluation of prototypes that engages users and documents feedback for optimizing solutions. Design thinking is applicable both in industry and social entrepreneurship contexts. In education, it fosters the development of adaptive, resilient, innovative, and creative young professionals that have the life skills necessary for addressing 21st century challenges.
This webinar will present the design thinking framework and practical processes of synthesizing solutions through empathy, problem-statement definition, ideation, prototyping, and evaluation. It will further present a digital collaboration framework that supports design thinking in teams through services that encourage the sharing ideas on a jointly owned solution design canvas, reviewing and building on the ideas of others, and evaluating feedback with the objective of reaching a solution that better address user needs. The services deploy gamification principles that promote user engagement by rewarding participation in the generation and review of ideas fostering group collaboration.
Speaker
Olivier Heidmann, University of Thessaly
Olivier Heidmann has a Master’s Degree from Louis Pasteur University of Strasbourg, France. He also taught 
computer science, mathematics and management to students ranging from 14 years old to adults. Since 2004, he participated as a key software and service designer and developer in more than 25 different EC-funded projects, using ICT and web based solutions to enhance teaching and learning methodologies and tools. The projects tackled a wide variety of subjects using innovative methodologies such as problem based learning, agile methods and design thinking. Mr. Heidmann has published several papers at international conferences, including the EDUCA On-line Conference, the CELDA Conference, the Europrix Academic Conference, and more.
