IDEA 2021 is underway! This is the ninth year for Bryant’s ground-breaking Innovation and Design Experience for All (IDEA) program, an immersive design thinking boot camp experience for all first-year students.
Bryant’s entire campus community mobilizes to create a Silicon Valley start-up atmosphere as students dig deep to come up with real-time solutions for businesses and community organizations. This year, due to the pandemic, the program is fully remote, with students participating from around world. “Elevating empathy” is the guiding theme as students tackle some of the most difficult challenges and disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Each cohort will apply design thinking principles to answer the overarching question: “How might we elevate empathy, social connection, and community in a COVID world?”
About 850 students are taking part in this intensive experience with the support and guidance of nearly 200 faculty, staff, student, and alumni mentors, as well as more than 100 alumni and regional business leaders who serve as judges.
Stay tuned to this page for daily updates and highlights.
Day 1: Introduction to design thinking - empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test
“In this year’s IDEA program, we are empowering you to help the millions of people who have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Allison Butler, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Director of the Bryant IDEA Program, as she kicked off the program this morning.
“This will be transformational,” Glenn Sulmasy, JD, LL.M., Bryant Provost and Chief Academic Officer, told students. “By the end of this, every one of you will say ‘I am a better person for having gone through this process.’”
Today, the transformation began with learning the design thinking process, studying the human-centered companies that embrace the methodology, and striving to help the community groups most impacted by the coronavirus – including frontline medical workers, first responders, and small business owners.
A new ways of thinking
Right out of the gate, students participated in the Wallet Challenge, the first of many exercises designed to open students’ minds to a new way of thinking critically and creatively. Tasked to design the ideal wallet, students rose to the challenge and used the five stages of the design thinking process – empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test – for the first time.
Masters of design thinking
What better way to understand the impact of design thinking than to study global brands that embrace the methodology? Students learned from two innovative companies that practice design thinking to improve the customer experience: GE designed the Adventure Series MRI machines to help alleviate children’s anxiety during an MRI scan; and Starbucks uses their prototyping lab, the Tryer Center, to bring ideas to action in 100 days.
Embracing empathy
With an understanding of design thinking principles, students got to work on the overarching challenge for IDEA 2021 – “How might we elevate empathy, social connection, and community in a COVID world?” Through field research interviews, students learned to put themselves in others’ shoes and practice empathy – a critical tool for building community, embracing diversity, and empowering successful leadership. They asked insightful questions, listened, took notes, and threw their preconceived opinions out the window.
Over the next three days, students will apply the design thinking process to create, test, and iterate viable solutions for their assigned community group.
Day 2: Empathy and ideation immersion
Day 3: Prototype and test
Day 4: Judgement day
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January 27, 2021 at 07:14AM
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IDEA 2021: Elevating empathy - updates and highlights | Bryant News - Bryant University
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