AIMING TO establish the University as the premier humanity-centered design-thinking (HCD+) institution in the Philippines, the Ateneo Business Resource Center (ABRC) and the Ateneo Intellectual Property Office (AIPO) have undertaken efforts to drive transformative change through its Blueprint Project—a collaboration-centric initiative focused on sustainable innovation.
Launched last August, the project aims to empower campus innovators in alignment with the University’s mission for “human development and the preservation of the Earth.”
Designing for humanity
Pioneered by Don Norman, known as the “Father of User Experience,” HCD+ builds on the principles of human-centered design by integrating user empathy with a focus on external impacts, especially environmental ones. The framework intends to create meaningful change by considering the interconnectedness of ecological systems and humanity.
Aligned with its vision, the Blueprint Project seeks to foster a culture of collaboration across various campus sectors, placing human capabilities at the center of University projects as part of the Ateneo’s Lux in Domino strategic plan.
Through this undertaking, both the ABRC and AIPO aspire to enhance Ateneo’s credentials in the field of design thinking and innovation by achieving the Don Norman Design Award, a recognition of the institution’s commitment to benefiting society. According to project head and ABRC Director Aran Samson, PhD, the initiative intends to open active dialogue among campus units.
“Regardless of what field you are [in], if you’re in the Ateneo, you’re actually already employing humanity-centered design. [A]t the core of it, the Blueprint Project really just aims to tie all of these different units together under a banner of humanity-centered design and innovation,” Samson explained.
A culture of collaboration
To kickstart the Blueprint Project, the DT|UX Summit, combined with a Town Hall event, brought together members of various campus units. Attendees included faculty and staff from the Fine Arts Department, Information Systems and Computer Science Department, Theology Department, Electronics and Computer Engineering Department, as well as the Basic Education cluster, among others.
“Whenever you bring in any group of people, generally, if everyone agrees, everyone’s super excited, everyone talks about how great our ideas are, but a lot of the time […] there’s no execution, and that’s very common. That’s human nature, but one way to really mobilize that passion is to have a very concrete goal,” Samson noted.
Samson further stated that the Blueprint Project first faced the challenge of obtaining a physical space and developing its mission and vision. He pointed out that while individuals working on the Project are not yet doing so in official positions, they are contributing their personal time and resources to see it through.
Despite these hurdles, the collaboration envisioned by the Blueprint Project has taken form through the Overseas Transdisciplinary Innovation Project Experience (OTIPE), a major component of Director Aran Samson’s Creative Thinking and Innovation Management class.
OTIPE is a collaborative project between teams composed of Ateneo and Singapore Polytechnic (SP) students, aimed at applying HCD+ and design thinking principles to innovate solutions for partner companies.
Cultivating student innovation
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Following a process of understanding, sketching, deciding, prototyping, and validating, the eight-week project—held from October 18 to December 11 last year—encouraged students to address human and societal needs across diverse cultures.
Sharing his insights on innovating business solutions for an international context, OTIPE student Jet Toledo (2 BS MGT-H) explained that there is a need for innovators to go beyond empathy in understanding humanity’s needs. “What I learned from design thinking is really that you have to be there firsthand to understand the problem,” Toledo stated.
Building on this perspective, Jasmine Ngo (2 BS MGT-H) highlighted the unique relationship between designers and users that characterizes HCD+.
“Some innovators disregard the fact they are solving people and focus instead on solving problems. HCD+ takes into account your potential users, and viewing people as collaborators and not clients is at the core of HCD+,” Ngo remarked.
Currently, the Blueprint Project is planning a series of design thinking workshops for interested campus members after gaining a certification in Design Thinking Facilitation from DesignThinkers Academy, a globally recognized institution on HCD+.
Given these small-scale but increasingly ambitious initiatives that bridge the various components of the Ateneo campus, Samson ultimately envisions the Blueprint Project to work toward bringing innovation and engineering to the common person.