‘2021 Design Thinking Boot Camp’ was a program proceeded by Center for EduTech Innovation (CETI) and was held for 2 days on May 7 and May 14. This was an extracurricular program based on design thinking. ‘Design Thinking’ is a creative troubleshooting methodology for actively solving the problem and is a 5-step thinking method of ‘Empathize→ Define→ Ideate→ Prototype→ Test’, focusing on problem-solving. ‘Boot Camp’ is a workshop camp of 2-day schedule which centers on practical exercise, experiencing design thinking methodology by conducting design thinking projects with a variety of topics.

▲ Poster of 2021 Design Thinking Boot Camp from Advanced Education Center. (Photo from DKU Center for EduTech Innovation (CETI))

   Lecturers for this program were Ryan Koo who is a representative of the CEO of Headstart Silicon Valley, Inc. in the US and the CEO of Colluent, the educational platform in Korea, and Yun Yong-jin, the professor of Department of Mechanical Engineering in KAIST. The topic for ‘2021 Design Thinking Boot Camp’ was ‘Practical exercises and preparation of start-up activities utilizing artificial intelligence.’ Participating students discussed about problems they ran into in their lives and, by presenting various ideas to solve these problems, they had time making IR (Investor Relations, an explanation of investor-targeted enterprises and a promotional activity data) presentation material by making those ideas as start-up ideas.

   Participants shared their inconvenience of buying more quantity of products than necessity when living in the dormitory or living by themselves. To solve this problem, they continued with an idea of making a mobile application where they can make a joint purchase with people living nearby using an application. Dankookians (Students of Dankook University) implemented their idea in form of IR presentation material in an online space utilizing DKU’s ‘Design Thinking Platform.’ Anyone who is a member of DKU can check participating Dankookians’ production process and output of IR presentation material through ‘courses’ of design thinking platform. Therefore, the ‘2021 Design Thinking Boot Camp’ is a program that can help Dankookians to think creatively about problems.

▲ IR presentation material from 2021 Design Thinking Boot Camp. (Photo from DKU Center for EduTech Innovation (CETI))

   There will be some additional offering of mileage points from Young熊 Story because it is certified as an outstanding program. Besides ‘2021 Design Thinking Boot Camp’, you can check various extracurricular programs on the Young熊 Story website.