Firstly, at the start of the workshop series, students experienced all core Design Thinking phases first-hand. Secondly, starting as a process tool, the transformative capacity of design thinking became obvious to the students. Thirdly, they were introduced to a series of mindsets, skillsets, and toolsets that innovators have and do in each of the design modes.
During the course of the program, students learnt about eight fundamental design abilities. Therefore these abilities pushed them to question their assumptions, shifted their mindsets and helped to discover new skills. Skills such as: Dealing with ambiguity, rapid prototyping, learning from feedback, synthesizing information, moving between abstractions. As well as conscious building and designing, conscious communication and design were learned. Additionally, pairing action with reflection exercises enabled them to dive further into the journey of their own potential. In other words, Design Thinking has become a social technology that altered students’ thinking and got them closer to becoming their authentic selves.