Design Thinking at UH

For the past 4 years after graduation, I have organized at least 1-2 events with student organizations to help them in their recruiting process but also with sharing my experience as an Innovation Designer. One of my favorite events was hosting a Design Thinking session for student organization like SHPE, NSBE and SWE; back in 2019 when we were able to host in-person activities.

To better organize the event, I brought 5 Accenture colleagues to help me create a mini-workshop for students, where we could teach the principles of user-centric design and provide examples on how we use it on our every day life. A big part of the event was allowing the students to tackle a specific problem they faced in the University: challenges ranged from finding parking all the way to a need to refresh the UH career services.

We created 5 groups composed of 6-8 students and 1 Accenture professional to tackle pain points students were facing. Each group created personas, journeys, and brainstormed opportunities. After, students were asked to select one idea that they could bring to "life". After, students were asked to select one idea that they could bring to life. As a final exercise, each group had to sell their ideas Shark Tank style! It was amazing to see how energized the students were to learn about design thinking and how some decided to take these ideas and try implementing them at school!

Days like those, really fuel my soul!