Outline
| Guest Lecturer | Yutaka Iimori, CEO, Digital Surf Inc. (Supporter: Kazuya Sawai, independent workshop designer and facilitator) |
| Date and time | Saturday, June 24, 2023 13:30-18:30 |
| Venue | Taki Plaza B2F Workshop Room 1 & 2 |
On June 24, 2023, “Design Thinking Workshop for Beginners” was held for the third time at Taki Plaza. This workshop is one of the “Category 1” events of the Entrepreneurship Development Programs of Tokyo Tech, and was jointly planned and managed by the Practical-Based Entrepreneurship Education Courses (PEECs) and Tokyo Tech Academy for Leadershipo (ToTAL).
A total of 28 students of all grade leves, from bachelor’s to doctoral degree programs, participated regardless of specialty or nationality.
The workshop was led by guest lecturer Yutaka Iimori, CEO of Digital Surf Inc., and supported by Kazuya Sawai, a freelance workshop designer and facilitator for innovation creation.
Guest lecturer: Yutaka Iimori
CEO, Digital Surf, Inc.
Supporter: Kazuya Sawai
The participating students were divided into six groups, and the workshop began after an ice-breaker that allowed team members to familiarize themselves with one another.
Self-care (healing oneself)” was announced as one of the trends to watch at Pinterest Predicts 2023. The theme of this workshop was set to “Anytime, Anywhere, Therapy” based on the social background that people are actively searching for various means to face themselves to solve their issues, unlike the conventional “talk therapy” in which they seek solutions by having someone listen to them. Based on this theme, activities were conducted to experience the five steps of design thinking: empathize, define, create, prototype, and test.
During the group work, participants summarized their ideas by putting post-its on a whiteboard and using design thinking tools such as “empathy maps” to organize what they had discussed. The workshop also proceeded with lively exchanges among students that only face-to-face meetings can provide.
In the latter half of the workshop, each team created a prototype of their idea using paper plates, yarn, balloons, and other materials available at the venue. After that, two teams worked in paris to explain their ideas using their prototype to each other. Finally, the team with the most confidence presented their idea to all participants using their prototype, and received warm applause from the other participants. Finally, Mr. Iimori, the instructor/facilitator, and faculty members gave a comment on the workshop as a whole, and offered words of encouragement to the participating students who had worked so hard during the half-day workshop with its condensed content.
Entrepreneurship is widely considered the foundation of the business world, not only in large companies and ventures, but also in non-governmental and non-profit organizations, administration, and research activities. In any organization, the entrepreneurial mindset has become a key component in evaluating an individual’s capability at work.
Tokyo Tech offers a wide variety of entrepreneurship development program classes and events that can be attended at any stage, whether you are new to entrepreneurship, actually considering starting your own business, or have already started your own business. Most of those classes and events are open to all students at any grade level or School. We encourage you to participate in the courses and/or events of entrepreneurship development programs.
Voices of participants:
- It is a good chance to learn about “design thinking” in a practical way, which is also used in business.
- I think one of the most interesting parts of design thinking is “prototyping,” and this is workshop of great value where you can experience prototyping in just 5 hours!
- Unleash your potential as a beginner in design thinking workshop. You will be amazed to see your own strengths and weakness. Plus you will be able to create opportunities from a problem statement.
- It is exciting and fun because you will be teaming up with people of completely different nationalities and grades. Please make sure to eat lunch properly as it will be a long day.
- This is a good class for beginners to learn design thinking.
- You will learn group work skills!
- I would advise every student at Tokyo Tech to take this workshop because the content and processes go beyond just product design. They can be applied in our daily lives and in every other aspect of life. Interestingly, you get to practice and develop a lot of skills, including but not limited to teamwork, critical thinking, communicating (listening and speaking), creativity, problem-solving, and empathy.
Pictures of the workshop
