Certificate in Innovation and Design Thinking

Overview

The Certificate in Innovation and Design Thinking (CID) is a five-months program focused on the design and implementation of innovative and sustainable solutions that meet concrete needs of real world users.

International experts mentor students as they learn about design thinking and the three pillars of innovation: viability (business), feasibility (technology) and desirability (people).

Student Profile

The CID program aims at being accessible for practitioners in any field, as well as for businessmen and executives with a busy schedule. It thus envisages work sessions, which take place over the weekends, from Friday to Sunday, once a month.

The CID program encourages multidisciplinary teams and is open to applicants from all industries, startups, non-profits and the public sector.

The program addresses both companies wishing to educate an entire group of employees as well as individuals from all sectors. It considers business professionals and creative professionals who are interested in making a meaningful change in their organizations.

Applicants should have strong communication and collaboration skills, English and computer proficiency.

Our Goal

Upon completion of the CID program, students will be able to: — Identify and asses innovation — Deeply understand the need of clients in order to create highly desirable products and services — Create competitive advantages for companies pursuing to deliver value to their customers

Module 1

Understanding Innovation and Identifying a Challenge

This module addresses the basic concepts of user-centered innovation and outlines the basic stages of the innovation process. The module focuses on problem identification and challenge formulation.

The goal of the module is to allow students to develop basic background knowledge of the challenge faced and to ask the “right” questions. Students will use their individual professional backgrounds to develop an understanding of all the elements of their design challenge.

Module 2

User Centered Innovation and Immersion

This module focuses on qualitative research methods for defining the customer’s unmet needs and desires. The course will explore customer relevance as a new paradigm in business. Students will be provided with tools for understanding new approaches in product innovation based on customer needs.

This is module encompasses the observation phase of the Design Thinking process which concentrate on gaining empathy with users, their habits, beliefs and needs. Students gather and interpret real-world information and get closer to synthesizing the bridge between the problem and the solution.

Module 3

Idea Generation

This module concentrates on idea generation, probably the most exciting part of the creative process. The goal of ideation is to generate a vast pool of ideas for the user. By building on individual points of view, teams define opportunities and a related “How-might-we” question.

With the help of brainstorming techniques, students then address the “How-might-we” question and deliver lots of wild ideas. From this pool the most intriguing ideas are chosen and will be realized as a prototype in the next phase.

Module 4

Prototyping and Testing

This module addresses prototype creation and validation from the points of view of viability, desirability and feasibility. Prototypes are the embodiment of ideas. They help students to further define their ideas and communicate them within their teams.

In this module students lean how to make their ideas tangible and unleash space for new and more detailed ideas. Since prototypes look like, feel like and behave like real-world products or services they can already be tested in user interaction.

Module 5

Innovation Implementation

The last module of the CID program focuses on planning, communicating and launching the new idea.

This module studies the implementation of innovation as a tool that guides students thought the critical path of articulating a strategic plan for businesses.

Professors