Minor Innovation and Design Thinking

​​​The topic for this Spring 2023 semester: ​Design a Solution

​Comprehensive training to design innovative, sustainable, and technological solutions. When it comes to innovation, some skills that a designer must have are the ability to understand the context and the users' needs, a good awareness of the implications related to sustainability, the capability to optimize resources, and  ​the awareness of technology’s potential.  
 
To validate the minor, the student must attend 3 workshops among the 4 proposed below. Each workshop lasts from 8 to 10 hours.​​ 

• ​Design Thinking: Design thinking is an approach invented at Stanford University and currently adopted by the most innovative companies worldwide (Air Bnb, IBM, McKinsey, Apple, and many others). Design thinking takes as its premise the notion that to innovate, designers must connect with people, understand their real needs, and explore the entire context of the project with a constant attitude of inquiry.
• AI For Business: In a world awashed with AI-based solutions, this workshop aims at increasing awareness about opportunities and criticalities related to  Artificial Intelligence. Students will receive an introduction to Machine Learning, Big data, and Automatic Natural Language Processing and analyse real business cases in order to understand how to leverage these technologies to build an innovative business opportunity.
• Effectuation: Discover entrepreneurship through the lens of effectuation theory. This logic of thought is used to build successful businesses by imagining the world as a set of opportunities. Start with the means available to achieve affordable goals.   
• ​Societal Transformation: Workshop focused on understanding today's and tomorrow's ecological and societal issues to develop sustainable, resilient solutions. Students will be introduced to tools to measure and diagnose its impact and propose impactful actions.