News | Education | 16 September 2022
Combatting Global Education Challenges Through Creativity, Innovation and Collaboration
Christine Niewöhner, Senior Project Manager, Siemens Stiftung participated in the Design Thinking ImpAct Conference by Hasso-Plattner-Institut (HPI) in Potsdam. The event marks the 15th anniversary of design thinking at the institute and the launch of the first-ever Global Design Thinking Challenge. The six-week challenge (8 September – 14 October 2022) is co-developed by HPI School of Design Thinking and the Global Design Thinking Alliance. Interdisciplinary teams from the global education community will participate in this academic challenge to collaborate and exchange best practices on interactive and multimedia learning platforms. It aims to stimulate innovative and implementable solutions for sustainable learning in schools worldwide.
At the hybrid kick-off of the challenge, Christine Niewöhner delivered a keynote on “Education as a Global Challenge”. She highlighted the role of creativity and innovation in education to combat the current global challenges. “Creativity, empathy, and collaboration are important components of the contemporary education approach to navigating the ever-changing realities around us. If our current challenges are on a global level, then the response also needs to be global and joined up. And this is precisely what all of us are trying to achieve through the Global Design Thinking Challenge. I look forward to meeting global design thinking practitioners and discovering the most innovative ideas on sustainable education and working together on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goal on “Quality Education”, she said.
The winning teams at the challenge will have the opportunity to present their most inspiring solutions at the d.confestival in Cape Town (12-14 October 2022).
Since 2019, Siemens Stiftung and The Index Project, a Danish non-profit organization have initiated a collaboration to implement Design Thinking in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education across the globe. Currently, over 150 South African and Latin American teachers have been introduced to the Design to Improve Life Compass (DtIL) methodology. “Design Thinking in STEM” was launched 3 years ago in South Africa through successful cooperation with the d-school Africa. Together with HPI, the foundation plans to train STEM teachers in Germany in the coming years.