Workshop "Design Thinking for Your Creative Practice (2024)"

We are pleased to inform you of the exciting workshop; "Design Thinking for Your Creative Practice", to be held in coming October and start of call for applications of the workshop. This workshop has been held 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 process. We are inviting 3 tutors, who have long experience for teaching Design Thinking in d.school, Stanford University and other organizations.

It is essential for students to have 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".

Facilitators 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.

• Although this workshop will be held as a part of Academy for Leadership's course of "Fundamental Group Work for Leadership I/II (F)", any students who are not applying to the Academy for Leadership course or students from other universities can also apply to the workshop. (Credits will not be granted to those students).
• This workshop has been designated as an event for "Program for Development of Next-Generation Front-Runners with Comprehensive Knowledge and Humanity" students as well.

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 the 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 Witthoft

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.

There will be a selection in case of over-subscription. In case of selection, the order of priority will be 1) Academy for Leadership students, 2) students who registered for Academy for Leadership courses, and 3) others who are participating in an ad-hoc basis. 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 for the selection.

• Hands-on creativity practice. You can learn about the different ways and processes for generating new ideas and how you can transform them quickly into tangible prototypes. (D1)
• It was a really fun, relaxing and interactive workshop. The workshop is very well organized and it allows the participants to learn very effectively. (D2)
• This workshop provides an opportunity to interact with other students and understand your own space. It made me realize that I want to do more, and, more importantly, to do things in a professional manner. (M2)
• I really enjoyed learning the concept of design thinking and practical skills such as effective sketching techniques. It was also a good opportunity to use my English, so I would recommend it to everyone! (M1)
• The content and participants were of very high quality, and the workshop was very satisfying. Personally, I have improved my English discussion skills since joining Academy for Leadership in June, so I was able to feel my own growth in that respect as well through this workshop. Let's join together next year! (M1)

• All of Science Tokyo students are expected to develop and execute new value for society when they become "professionals" in any fields. At Academy for Leadership, 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 concepts above.
• This workshop aims to establish such 2 concepts in your brain and body. The 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 2-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.

• Workshop "Design Thinking for Your Creative Practice (2024)" Flyer (PDF)
• [Call for participants] ToTAL/OPEN Program: Design Thinking for Your Creative Practice –Skills and methods to help you work like a designer- (Oct. 26 & 27) | Academy for Leadership
• Academy for Leadership