and the winner of Stanford d.prize is…

…K-12 International Team 2009!

What is the d.prize?

d.school students spend a huge amount of time and effort getting out of their comfort zone, absorbing a powerful new design process, experimenting with radical collaboration, and delivering real solutions for the real needs of real people in real time. The d.prize is one of our ways to give these great teams some public recognition, and to let the world know what they are doing.
Get your haiku on, and give us your best shot!

Stanford’s design institute (d.school) has just announced the winners of the d.prize 2009, recognizing the  student projects of Stanford d.school. I am super happy that we did it and won the d.prize 2009!

Here´s our best shot:

d.school K-12 Lab – Innovative Educational Designs for India and Bhutan

The educational design challenge I:

d.school K12-Lab Bhutan project:
Summary:
The remote former Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is the world’s youngest democracy!
While it is only the size of Switzerland, it has produced one of the world´s biggest ideas – the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH). How do we educate for GNH? Bhutanese kids today are growning up in a country dramatically different from the kingdom their parents grew up in. Therefore, education systems must help them develop citizenship skills and 21st century literacies, like innovation and creativity, while remaining rue to their heritage.
Story:
Our partner in Bhutan is the Royal Education Council (REC), a group appointed by the King to redesign the country’s education system. Their mission is to „Create the best education system in the world“. The people of Bhutan recognize the importance of progressive, child-centered models of education. However, they are just as strongly committed to maintaining a strong Buddhist ethical core in their society. This tradition emphasizes understanding, compassion, and mindfulness. Could design thinking be a bridge between these two worlds? By helping students become a thoughtful, compassionate observes first and foremost, design thinking could be an ideal strategy.
These ideas will be tested in a series of „Beacon Schools“ that the REC is establishing to explore new ideas in education. We will be working in curriculum, as well as integrating design thinking in the REC’s reform efforts. A final area of focus is early childhood education – how to better prepare children and their families for school. Working with traditional craftsmen in Bhutan, we have the oppoertunity to design early childhood education toys. This „School in a Box“ system would spark imagination and creativity and jump-start student learning. We are exploring the following areas:

- d.training: design thinking for teachers
- design thinking for life skills
- iLab: a rapid prototyping environment for the beacon schools
- d.story: how to spread good ideas – from cable TV to on-line outreach
- d.toys: a system of toys for early childhood development

Interesting and challenging is the idea of developing a „Gross National Happiness“ for a whole nation!

_____________________________________________________________

After endless brainstorming, couple ideations, prototyping and testing…

Visit d.school k12

This is our final description of our project with Bhutan:

Title
A Spicy Challenge

The User
Bhutanese Young Adults

Haiku Team
K12 Crew, d.view
Shoots to Think, Stories Evolve…
YouTube Feeds Us Back!

Haiku POV
Bhutan Youth Desire
Entrepreneur Power Skills
“Bring Hip d.TV!”

Story

My luck started when I took up residence in the supplies cart in room 524A. While living there I would constantly see student teams work on different projects. I especially enjoyed listening in on the activities of the k-12 international team, as they were always having so much fun. Some weeks ago they started talking about teaching entrepreneurship skills to young adults in Bhutan. Boy, that sounded challenging and with potential for great impact! They discussed the recent arrival of TV to Bhutan and how popular it has become, so creating an educational cable TV show seemed like a good idea. I observed as they sketched the elements of the plot and brainstormed on the skills they would target. They sought the insight of experts who had been to Bhutan and others who had entrepreneurship experience in developing countries. Then they were quickly off to prototyping the pilot show – and that’s when I was cast for the leading role of the clever entrepreneur!

When I first got to the film set, I was perplexed… I couldn’t tell who the director was and there was no script in sight. But the d.crew -as the students liked to call themselves- were passionate and quick at solving any issues that arised. They worked well together, building props and writing (and re-writing) my lines in between scenes. They quickly shared the pilot with the d.school to get feedback.

And soon enough, we were back at the set shooting extra scenes. One new scene showcased the impact of my entrepreneurial success on the local community. They also added features to make the show interactive and to generate new challenges…. What other problems can be solved using these skills?

Now I’m all over the web -on youtube and ning- where everyone can see my work and comment on it… Can’t wait to hear from the handsome Bhutanese King too! And by the way, the idea of chili candles? That was my idea :)

and a comic for Changing Education in Bhutan:

(click to download the comic (.pdf))

The educational design challenge II:

d.school K12-Lab India project:
K12 Lab – India (d.school Stanford)
Want to exlore the potential of design thinking for schools abroad? Get involved with the K12 international team!
Summary:
A different kind of schools sits on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, a city in western India, where students are confident, creative, and actively involved in changing their world. How did this happen?  A simple rule of common sense – common practice and the belief that students matter are the Riverside School’s founding principles. Riverside teachers guide and mentor students by taking on real-world projects that tackle difficult subjects. For example, students explore the construction of identity as a design process. They work with clients, such as India’s largest comic book publisher to redesign comics for modern Indian youth. They also organize street plays to educate their community about challenging social issues.
Story:

The Riverside School is bursting with ideas. Yet they are just beginning to explore how to capture and share what goes on at their school. How might we design a lightweight, non-intrusive and impactful way to „write“ and tell stories? This is an area we are actively exploring at the K12 Lab and at the d.school as a whole. We will also be working with Tees Ka Dum, a tutoring program for disadvantaged youth run by the Riverside students. The K12 Lab will help Riverside students develop design challenges and curricula that focus on addressing real community problems. (d.school K12 Lab)

Specifics:
The design challenge is to work with students in India on creating a ‘well being’ toolkit that can be ported to different schools around India.

______________________________________________

Here´s a first design we developed…

Below is a video clip created by students at Riverside and as a response to our ideas…

Thanks to a wonderful team and endless nights with lot´s of Pizza and Brainstorming….