Economy & Society - Design thinking for ecologically sustainable solutions
In this seminar, students will be using Design Thinking to find solutions to an ecological sustainability problem.
“Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” (Brown 2019). We will give focus on the “needs of people” by developing ecologically sustainable solutions, which can be defined as solutions that meet “[…] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, World Commission on Environment and Development 1987). To develop ecologically sustainable solutions, we will apply the five steps of Design Thinking: Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.
The aim of the seminar is to give the participants the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of sustainability and the use of the Design Thinking approach. The seminar will be held in English and the seminar paper will be written in English as well.