DESIGN THINKING is a relatively modern discipline which, at first, seems difficult to explain. It is used by business leaders, medical teams, lawyers, engineers and many other professionals, who are mostly far from being designers themselves. So DESIGN THINKING can be seen as a set of cognitive, strategic and practical tools where design concepts are developed - usually bringing in factors like UI, customer response and the environment which will normally be sidestepped.

Basically DESIGN THINKING is a method borrowed from the design profession in being able to deal simultaneously with complexity. Design thinking is the cognitive skill of handling many unknown factors but where the end goal is a harmonic, balanced result. When IBM created a power computer they merged their normal processor chips with graphic chips from Navidia. The result was a greatly enhanced performance. In even simpler terms, it is like adding yeast to flour and water to make even better bread.

Projects that are eligable for the DESIGN THINKING AWARD will be projects where the results are often improbable but excellent solutions, developed through a disruptive development. They can be many different themes from bus timetables to COVID testing to Circular Economy to production rationalsation.

See also the application menu for more detailed information as well as the Q&A section.

The deadline for the DESIGN THINKING AWARD is the 20th of March 2025 at 20.00 UTC - Coordinated Universal Time