Design Thinking Workshop - December 2016

On December 8th and 9th this year in JA Startup Hambar, located in Sofia Tech Park, a workshop on Design Thinking was held with the participation of 30 young people and their teachers, participants in the "Learning Company" program of Junior Achievement Bulgaria, recognized by the EC as "the best practice in entrepreneurship education".

Within two days, students from Vratsa, Veliko Tarnovo, Vidin, Samokov, Ruse, Sandanski and Sofia had the opportunity to significantly improve the product of their training company through the tools of Design Thinking. As a representative of the training company "SkyTeam" AD and Milena Petkova of "Possibilita" AD, we presented the two training companies of Sofia University "Vazrazhdane" - Ruse, headed by Mrs. Darinka Stefanova.

Design Thinking is the methodology that puts customer needs at the heart of creating products and services. There were short theoretical parts for the participants, followed by work on the individual Design Thinking phases - research, synthesis, idea generation, prototyping and validation together with an experienced SAP specialist. This helps to better understand what problems potential customers face and to what extent the training company's idea for a product or service solves them, as well as in what direction to develop it. The benefit of participating in this training of any team that is in the initial phase of development is that:

- will be able to clarify what clients really need - through a survey with prepared interview questions and observations;

- generate / select new ideas on how to meet this need with an innovative product or service that is not yet on the market - within the framework of synthesizing and generating ideas;

- validate / evaluate how much the customers like the proposals - by prototyping and testing with test users;

- Take specific next steps to implement your product or service.

The workshop was led by certified trainers using the Design Thinking method - part of the team of the SAP Development Center in Sofia. The interactive activities started with identifying the problem or area in which students want to work and develop their entrepreneurial idea, and then, using the Business Canvas model, they explored the direction in which they were embarking. The participants tested their ideas through interviews and conversations with potential clients, and on the second day of the training they made prototypes and validated their developments. The teams of students went through a series of practical steps and ended with the presentation of their business ideas to an audience by all participants. Because of our participation, we will all receive a certificate from the Junior Achievement.