On May 8, 2018, School of Entrepreneurship and Management held a Design Thinking Roadshow.
The Roadshow displayed product prototypes developed by 21 ShanghaiTech student groups and visitors awarded them “investment coupons.” In the end, a “Cubot Game for the Blinds”, “Tianchaochao Quick Breakfast” and “White-Color-Friendly-Chair” won the most “investment.” The winning teams said that understanding users, product testing, and rapid iteration were the three most important factors leading to their success.
The “Visiting Investors” from various schools were all impressed by the competing groups’ excellent sense of entrepreneurship and ability to define problems and develop products. The students presented their product concepts with passion and confidence, and demonstrated product effectiveness via quantitative data and vivid demonstration. The roadshow exhibited the great potential of science-and-technology students in business innovation when they combine their mathematics, model building, and logical thinking skills with learned business knowledge.
In Professor Zhou Haotian's opinion, creativity was the hallmark of this event. Students were given an opportunity to experience the most crucial step in the journey of a new venture. The importance of people skills and presentation skills are often underestimated. Many people believe that ideas are crucial to the success of a startup. In fact, persuading and impressing an audience is also a key factor. This is why SEM places great emphasis on psychology education.
Xue Chen, instructor of the Design Thinking course, said this course helped the students to develop products and solve problems through the processes of sensing, define, create, develop and iterate, which showed the power of integration of cross-disciplines knowledge, brainstorming, and meeting “business partners” from different backgrounds. Later, their projects might participate in Business Competition, and compete for real investors. As an introductory basis for other SEM courses, Design Thinking offers a novel way for science students to think and solve problems in their research work.
Professor Ding Lu，Vice Dean of SEM, said that he was inspired by the students’ innovations and creative ideas embodied in so many novel product designs. “I’d like to give a special thanks to the instructors and the teaching assistants who guided the students in their exploration,” he said. He praised the displayed designs as evidence that the students have learned to apply critical thinking in detecting problems, identifying opportunities, and solving problems through innovative designs with imagination and technical details. He was glad to see that some of the products were designed for disabled and older people, a demonstration of the students’ sense of compassion, an indispensable part of ShanghaiTech’s and SEM’s core values and philosophy. He encouraged the students to keep observing, imagining, creating, and designing, to make the world a better place with practical skills and actions.
Scene of DT Roadshow
Winner Team of “Cubot”
Product Demonstration by Students
Professor Ding Lu is listening to the student’s presentation