This year, 32 students joined our annual Design Thinking Bootcamp (DTbc) and together, worked to practice and improve their creative thinking skills. Full of fast paced group activities, the DTbc is an opportunity for students to learn distinctive brainstorming and problem-solving methods, as well as imagine solutions to challenges they may face in the future.

 

As most university courses have continued online this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the DTbc was modified to an online format as well. Typically, the creative thinking activities of the workshop emphasize high energy and physical movement (in the past, one team building activity required students to find out how many hand dryers were working in M&D Tower), as well as arts and crafts such as drawing and building prototypes from the bootcamp’s box of random and strange materials (coffee filters, boxes, suit ties and even a rubber chicken!). But while the transformation to an all-online event modified what activities could be completed, thanks to the energetic enthusiasm of all the participants the bootcamp was a resounding success! To replace paper and scissors, the participants worked collective with their teams in online Google Slides and the whiteboard emulating software Miro, to practice brainstorming and other design thinking methods. They completed several short projects centered on the topic of empathy and healthy living at home. These two themes are important to consider after a year of relative isolation in our homes.

 

Hopefully, all the participants continue to practice the creative thinking methods that were introduced at the bootcamp and find ways to apply them in the future in different ways. Congratulations to all the students who completed this year’s event!