Workshop for ToTAL & Entrepreneurship Course to be held on Dec/6-7/2025
【Call for Applicants】 Design Thinking for Your Creative Practice
-Skills and methodology to help you work like a designer–
Outline
We are pleased to inform you of the exciting workshop; “Design Thinking for Your Creative Practice”, to be held in coming October and of our starting “Call for Applications” to the workshop. This workshop has been held at Tokyo Tech every year since 2014 and got over-subscription every time. The workshop has a reputation for its effectiveness to understand the core of Design Thinking; concepts of Creative Confidence and User Centric. The workshop is also informative and enjoyable by its speedy Silicon Valley style workshop by inviting 3 tutors who have long experiences for teaching Design Thinking in d.school, Stanford University and other organizations.
It is essential for students to establish their capability of “leadership” and “entrepreneurship” in a borderless society in order to generate new values, and “Design Thinking” is a fundamental concept and methodology for such “leadership” and “entrepreneurship” skills. Many Japanese and international enterprises are actually asking their employees to learn and utilize the concept of “Design Thinking”.
Tutors for the workshop are Thomas Both, David Janka, and Scott Witthoft. They are all professional product designers and educators. They teach design thinking at the Stanford University d.school, the University of Texas at Austin, and at organizations around the world.
■Points of this workshop can be applied for the Entrepreneurship(Leadership, Value Creation) Courses with “point system”:
●200-level:
-ENT.L202 Bachelor’s Fundamental Group Work for Leadership B
-ENT.V206 Bachelor’s Fundamental Group Work for Value Creation D
●500-level:
-TAL.A501-02 Master’s Essential Group Work for Leadership F
-TAL.S506/510 Recognition of Social Issues Workshop B/D
-TAL.W502/503 Fundamental Group Work for Leadership I/II
●600-level:
-TAL.A601-02 Doctoral Essential Group Work for Leadership F
*Any of Science Tokyo students (both Bachelor and Graduate students) who are not applying the above course can apply to the workshop. (Credits will not be granted to those students).
*This workshop has been designated as an event for “SPRING” program.
Details
| Date & Time | 【Day 1】 Saturday, December 6, 2025, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. 【Day 2】 Sunday, December 7, 2025, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. |
| Venue | S4-202 Lecture Room, South Building 4, Ookayama Campus |
| Capacity | Around 35 students |
| Notes | ・Any student (undergraduate or graduate student) in Science Tokyo may apply to this workshop. ・If the number of applicants exceeds the capacity, a selection. The order of priority will be ToTAL students, students taking either “Fundamental Group Work for Leadership I/II (F)” or “(Master’s/Doctoral) Essential Group Work for Leadership (F)”, and other students. ・With regard to the selection, both ToTAL students and the students who registered for ToTAL course may have a priority, and your answers to the Application Form below; ” Please indicate your English capability, such as “Native”, “Advanced”, “Intermediate”, or “Beginner”, and/or score of English assessment tests including TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS, Cambridge and/or EIKEN” and ” Your aim(s) or expectations you have for this workshop, or motivation for joining the workshop.” will be taken into consideration. ・Attendants to this workshop need to make commitments to: (1) attend both 2 days, and (2) not be late nor leave early for those days. |
| Language used | English *This workshop will be held entirely in English. (Scores over 750 for TOEIC and 80 for TOEFL iBT are preferrable.) |
| Fee | Free |
| Application deadline | Friday, November 21, 2025 |
| Application | If you wish to participate, please apply via either one below; (1) If you wish to use this workshop as a point for the entrepreneurship course you applied: please upload the “Workshop Selection Form” on this page.（https://www.total.titech.ac.jp/en/lead_innov/） (2) If you do not register for any of Entrepreneurship Course but would like to participate in this workshop: please apply using the application form（https://forms.office.com/r/B5jMegmUqv）から Whether you can join the workshop or not will be informed to applicants after the application deadline. |
| Inquiry | Please contact Prof. Yamada/ToTAL & CEE below; Email: yamada.k.9f82@m.isct.ac.jp, Room: S6-309B, Ookayama Campus |
＜Reference＞ Facilitators
■Thomas Both:
Thomas is a designer and design educator whose passion is helping people understand the practice of human-centered design—and their ability as designers—to innovate how they learn, think, and solve problems. He is director of the Designing for Social Systems program at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school) at Stanford University. In this program, he teaches professionals how to apply design thinking to complex social challenges and facilitates workshops for social impact leaders to develop a more human and strategic practice.
■David Janka:
Design consultant and creative strategist; former Fellow and current lecturer at the Stanford University d.school. David has a medical degree from Stanford and works to integrate design thinking principles into medical education, healthcare delivery, and medical device design.
■Scott Witthouft:
Professional space and product designer; former Associate Professor of Practice at University of Texas at Austin; former Fellow and lecturer at the Stanford University d.school. Scott is author of the book “Make Space,” a tool for designing collaborative spaces. He has a professional background in structural engineering.
＜Reference＞ Comments of students who joined the workshop in the past
■Come to this class to notice small details in your life and new opportunities for improvements to the science. This workshop will change your mindset to thinking about your personal and professional life.(B1)
■If you want to escape from your research life, try this workshop. Although it’s 2 days on the weekend, it’s really fun to do collaborate with new friends, learn something mind-opening things from amazing native English speaker instructors.(M2)
■I decided to attend the workshop to reskill my design thinking. However, this provide me a new perspective of design thinking following the basic framework and interactive activities. Although, I’m quite sleepy the class make me active almost all the time. (M2)
■I strongly encourage everyone to participate in this event at least once, as it offers an invaluable learning experience. The mentors are not only highly skilled experts in design systems but also exceptional at sharing their insights and experiences in a way that is both engaging and inspiring. Their ability to simplify complex concepts and present them in exciting, interactive ways makes this event a must-attend for anyone looking to deepen their understanding and enhance their skills. Don’t miss the opportunity to learn from the best and be part of a truly enriching experience!(D1)
＜Reference＞ Aims and characteristics of this workshop
■All Science Tokyo students are expected to develop and execute new value for society when they become “professionals” in any fields. At ToTAL, we believe that the core of “leadership” is the motivation and skills to develop such new value for society proactively.
■The concept of “Creative Confidence”, meaning that creativity is for everybody and anyone can generate new ideas, and “User Centric”, which is making new values to be accepted in society, are the fundamentals of Design Thinking. Establishing such concepts in your mind, developing logic and taking actions will lead to such new values.
■Although it is often understood that Design Thinking is a kind of method to generate “innovations” by following 5 steps; empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test, the core of Design Thinking is the 2 concept above.
■This workshop aims to establish such 2 concepts in your brain and body. d.school tutors designed the agenda especially for Science Tokyo to satisfy such aim, which is deferent from usual design thinking workshop of merely learning the 5 steps.
■During this 3-day workshop, students should try to understand and experience the mind-set of Creative Confidence and the skill set of User Centric; exploring mechanism of needs and jump belong logic, through d.school way of speedy, friendly and diversified learning environment.
Inquiries
Prof. K. Yamada, Academy for Leadership
e-mail address: yamada.k.be@m.titech.ac.jp
Office: S6-309B, TEL: 03-5734-2323
