MIND Mentor Review Day
MIND / Manipal Innovation and Design is an initiative by Manipal Global Education Services (MaGE), with a Post Graduate Certificate program in Design, Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship in partnership with Spread Design and Innovation.
The Program is designed to shape Creative Leaders with tensility. Equipping talent with knowledge to be responsive, while working across silos, on complex challenges. Each Learner is unique and their journey across the course and growth trajectory is carefully designed to Stretch the limits. Flow through an entire project. Expand the possibilities strategically, with Design and Innovation.
Over the past 3+months,16 weekends, 80+ hours, 9 Dares, 9 Supermentors, 11 Council members plus the MIND Learners have had moments of intellectual stimulation, fun and co-creation, stretching their minds with DICE — concepts and tools pertaining to Design, Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship.
The program covers a range of topics and has much more than a typical design strategy agenda with topics like: Divergent and Convergent Thinking, Integrative Thinking, Flow, industry 4.0 and Technologies, Innovation, Design Driven Innovation, Design Led Disruption, Design for Customer Experience, Design Prototyping Techniques plus more.
DARE is the big differentiator in the program developed to ‘build tensility’ in talent: the concept of DARES / Industry challenges that are mostly current, complex and relevant systems problems. That the learners, in teams of 3–4 take forward as industry projects. These DAREs are put forth by an Industry Mentor who then also is the potential client. From whom our only ask is that they give us (Spread LXD Team and the MIND Team) the opportunity to prototype the solution.
The DARE is based on Spread’s Design Sense method where the Learners get an understanding of Spread’s frameworks and tools for design research, stakeholder and empathy mapping, building personas, reframing challenges as opportunities, mapping shifts, culling radical insights, developing solutions, building narratives to design, build and spread change.
This is an entirely online experience and journey. With Live Studio Sessions to bring the learners and trainers together from across the world, as a pioneering effort given the pandemic, the greatest measure of its success has been the feedback at the Mentor Review Day which is proof of the quality of learners that the first MIND cohort is comprised of and a great validation of the design of the program.
We are super excited to share that the learners have reached a position where, with in depth work and ideation, they have reached a situation where they presented exciting solutions!
The learners have received much ‘tough love’ from our program mentor Sonia_Manchanda, our Dare Facilitators Rajeshwari Math, Shwetabh S Verma, to reach a position where, with in depth thinking, work and ideation, they are ready with robust and exciting solutions!
Some insights on 09 Industry Dares that the MIND Cohort batch one is working on:
Dare 01 : Design a human system to deliver a parcel from Bangalore to Delhi.
Rajiv, Aravind and Anoop presented their journey and solution to their Super mentor Kaleem Kamboj , Assistant Professor,Parsons School of Design . The New School and MIND Council member.
The team’s deep research connected aspects like ‘human trust, empathy, network sciences, technology, social media, user motivations, rewards and gamification to come up with a system design for delivering the parcel. And Kaleem said ‘impressive’ and as the team has beautifully connected the dots to come up with a solution.
The idea that the team is working on is a Product + Service offering that uses Facebook crowdsourcing as a platform. A Product to make the delivery and tracking easy and Service to trigger people to volunteer to be part of this network.
Dare 02 : Reimagine the Work from Home Experience
Team Sudhay Upadhye, Rashida and Hari got the opportunity to present their journey to Anoop Menon, Principal Director at Accenture Ventures . Accenture The Dock. The challenge, To develop an experience design for WFH in a coordinated co-space while ensuring data protection and security of sensitive and confidential client data being handled by the employees.
After extensive survey and design research, the team has come up with a compact prototype which can accompany a working professional wherever they want to work from irrespective of time and ambience. Essentially solving 3 problems, Privacy, Background, and Noise.
The idea: A smart and compact designed briefcase that enables one to work from anywhere.
The presentation by the Dare 2 team drew appreciation from the Mentor. Anoop’s feedback was to think through the detail of ergonomics and figure out the sturdiness and the cost and create a system for work from anywhere experience.
Dare 03 : Reimagine the Future of Flying and Mobility
Samrat and Vijay presented to their Super Mentor — Satyaki Raghunath, Chief Strategy & Development Officer at BIAL, MIND Council Member. He was super impressed by how the team presented their pitch, the flow, the simplicity, visualisation and the clarity of the ideas. His closing comments were, “Absolutely superb presentation!!! Really impressed.”
The solution for BIAL’s challenge evokes systemic integration, promotes touch less technology, immerses the traveller in nature and biodiversity, creates sustainability and unleashes innovation. Post Satyaki’s feedback, the team is super excited and now set to detail the key ideas further.
Get Mind Global’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Dare 04 : Hack the Waste Challenge
Team Aditya Arun, Prathap and Hari presented their journey to Biju Damodharan, Sr. Manager, UX Design and Research at Amazon, MIND Council member. Amazon India Design. The user centric approach to the challenge and the ideas presented were appreciated.
The Solution: A systems design approach where we create an opportunity with the amazon box, Building engagement with the users and connecting with the existing systems. The team is getting ready to take it forward and meet the packaging and rewards team as the next step.
Dare 06 : Design for Productivity
Suryarshi, Ankush and Sidhharth shared the research and 5 behavioural insights on productivity to Deepak Menon, Partner Director, Microsoft, Microsoft Design MIND Council member.
The Solution: a productivity catalyst that enables individuals to work effectively taking care of mental, physical and social well being. The super mentor found value in the idea of ‘me’ and has asked the Dare team to flesh the ideas for the individual for them to manifest their presence during the meetings.
Dare 07 : Responsible Waste Disposal in Rural Karnataka
Vinay, Ebaad and Sanjeeta presented to their super mentor Mallikarjuna, lead RDPR project at Spread Design.
The team started with their process of immersion where they presented the landscape, the research on user interviews, key insights and the shifts. One of the key shifts was ‘kool kanjoos’ being proud of being miser and ‘going back to nature’, going back into full cycle how we used to be in the past.
Mallikarjuna appreciated the depth of work and the insights and has suggested that the team take forward the idea and create a prototype as the people’s movement and building ownership and responsibility of their waste.
Dare 08: Helping Communities to ensure the Mental Wellbeing of Members
Prerna, Dipeet and SreeVidya presented their journey & prototype to their super mentor Shwetabh Verma, Chapter Leader & Community Designer at OpenIDEO Bengaluru chapter.
The team was mentored by Shwetabh while in the research, discovery and definition phase. They received applause from the mentor for their in-depth research and documentation.
The solution is a platform to propagate proactive mental well being measures inspired from ‘metamorphosis of butterfly’.
The team would further work on the bundling of their ideas to come together as a solution and has also been encouraged to work on the feasibility of the execution and an in-depth customer analysis.
Dare 09 : Agrihoods for the Planet and the Next Generation
Amrita, Srikrishna and Vijayant did a spectacular job in sharing their journey and immersion on their Dare to Bushair, Co founder of Woolly Farms and super mentor. The hobbyists as a persona and the idea of ‘goodness on doorstep’ was really liked by Bushair.
The solution is about creating ‘A Food Movement Enabling trust, transparency and efficiency from farms to homes!
Dare 10 : Reimagine the Digital Learning System
Vijay, Yara and Ramya shared their journey and immersion on the Dare given to them to their Super mentor Sonia_Manchanda , Founding Partner, SPREAD Design and Innovation, MIND Council Member. They received feedback on designing learning experiences that would adhere to addressing the pain points in the new normal i.e. ‘learn from home’ culture that has taken over the student’s world.
The soulful solution — designing an entertaining friend who takes the learner on this magical journey. Here ‘FUN’ turns out to be the core component to keep the learners engaged. The team is working on detailing the functionalities and the prototype.
The detailed solutions will be showcased at the MIND Show at the end of the program in December.
Stay tuned for more.
Written by Rajeshwari Math : Principle Designer at Spread Design,
Program Facilitator, MIND. Email : raji@spread.ooo
