Following on last year’s success of this 8-week master course at the Business School of the University of Amsterdam, STBY’s Strategy Director Geke van Dijk is again involved as the co-lecturer for a second edition of the course in 2014. Together with Dr. Wietze van der Aa, Geke teaches and supervises 40 international business and management students who are all keen to immerse themselves in a more Design-Driven and Human-Centered approach to Business Innovation.
From early February and late March 2014 the students follow an intensive programme of lectures and workshops, while working in small groups on a specific challenge set by Philips. The high paced and collaborative approach of the course is exceptional for university-based education. As this is what most of them will encounter in their careers after graduation, the course gives them a solid heads up.
Among the key references for this course is the book ‘Designing for Growth’ by Jeanne Lietke & Tom Ogilvie. They introduce a useful 4-staged approach with well illustrated examples of 10 specific tools that can be used. The students can take inspiration from this, and also make use of a range of other references and toolkits.
In addition to the group assignment, based on the challenge from Philips, the students also need to write an individual paper, based on a relevant selection of the associated literature.