25 Jul IE Human-Centered Design club retrospective

Writter by: David Dalel, Student @IE

When we first decided to create the Human-Centered design club we never imagined we would meet the group of amazing people that participated in our workshops, talks, and events. Throughout the last six months, the club offered six events that had the objective to give a new toolbox of techniques to solve the complex problems to the IE community. The topics ranged from the agile methodology in the context of human-centered design to a detailed explanation of the prototyping process, just to name some of the skills we learned over this year.

As impact is one our main values we collaborated with the Net Impact Club in order to generate ideas on how can IE become a more sustainable university. As a result, we got more than 100 ideas that approached in different ways the transformation of our university to a more sustainable organization. The participants went out with new ideation tools to solve the social environmental and social challenges that we are currently facing in the world.

Behind the scenes, a group of very talented and committed people made everything possible. Our coordinators are one of the best teams I had the luck to work with, their enthusiasm and can-do attitude were the reasons we had top of the crop speakers in our events. We dreamt of a club that had an impact, and I believe we managed to do it.

Now is the turn for a new group of coordinators to keep running this amazing project, adding new ideas and broadening the understanding of, how might we use human-centered design tools to improve businesses, our community and hopefully the lives of many people.

To inspire incoming students to be part of this journey here are some of our coordinator’s experience with the club this year:

S’busiso Msimango (MCXI from South Africa):

“It’s amazing what can be achieved in just six months.  I was fortunate to work with a dream team of coordinators who brought their A-game to every single club activity.  Furthermore, through the club, I have been able to form meaningful relationships with students from other programs, faculty members from across the university, as well as top innovation professionals who partnered with us in various initiatives.”

Tanya Raschle (MIM from Switzerland):

“Being a coordinator of the Human-Centered design Club has been such a rewarding experience for me this past semester. As a current MIM and future MCXI student, I not only had the opportunity to get to know students currently studying the MCXI program but learned so much from organizing and attending workshops with industry experts on topics such as Agile implementation, ideation as well as prototyping.”

Some words from our President Rungaron (May) Yangprayong (MCXI from Thailand):

My name is May and I’m an MXCI student (Master in Customer Experience and Innovation) from Thailand. I started the Club with my two other friends because I personally believe in a Human-centered design approach to problem-solving and this is also the reason I chose to do this master at HST. The approach doesn’t only bring value in terms of solving a problem or creating innovation in both the private and public sectors but also change my perspective as a person. Being coordinator of the Club especially for the first year was challenging and required dedication. Amid all school work, the motivation that drives me is passion and determination that somehow I can contribute back to the IE community which I’m grateful for. We have received much support throughout our time from professors, faculty members, campus life, alumni, other clubs’ coordinators, club members, friends and everyone who came to our events. Last but certainly not least, having a chance to do something meaningful with an amazing group of people makes this experience even more fun and fulfilling. As I’m graduating now, I want to say that time flies quickly, grab a chance to do something impactful and be the change you want to see.