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Multicampus event: Design Thinking seminar, all campuses worldwide
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6 to 8 February, this event brought together more than 1,300 students to work on solutions for the social inclusion agenda. This year students had to address a complex and delicate societal challenge: “How can you improve the well-being of individuals suffering from physical, mental, or relational disabilities for a more inclusive society?”. The Design Thinking seminar is driven by Francesca Melillo, the professor in charge of this multicampus event.
The SKEMA Design Thinking Seminar 2023 brought together 1,300 students from Master in Management (PGE, M1) and around 30 professors from our campuses in France, China, the USA, and Brazil over three days in February. In a challenge laid on during the three-day seminar, students were asked to develop an understanding of their users by conducting interviews with caregivers and adopt a creative mindset, to think “out of the box”.
They worked in teams on how to improve the well-being of individuals with disabilities. "Using primary data from their interviews combined with ideas brainstorming, and digital prototyping through Mural, an online collaboration platform, 250 virtual teams worked intensively on a global scale to come up with solutions that aim to improve the lives of individuals with physical, mental, or relational disabilities. The challenge was deeply meaningful for the students. They were strongly engaged and demonstrated empathy, and creativity", said SKEMA professor Francesca Melillo, in charge of this global seminar.
On the Brazil campus
On the Brazil campus
To start their projects, the international students present at SKEMA Brazil, had a Design Thinking workshop with professor Juliana Travassos. In addition, they had a lecture with professor and doctor, Frederico Garcia, who is a psychiatrist and head of the Center for Research on Vulnerability and Health (NAVES), to better understand what the experience of a person with a disability and those who live with them is like. To put themselves in these people's shoes, students did an activity where they walked a block blindfolded.
