Spring Break in Sierra Leone
Human-centered design begins with need-finding, as a clear understanding of the user’s needs is central to the design process. As our first design project focused on foreign concessions in Sierra Leone, I accompanied eight students from Rebooting Government on a week-long trip to Sierra Leone over spring break. Hosted by Simeon Koroma, the executive director…
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Rebooting Gov DP1: Foreign Concessions in Sierra Leone
As outlined in a previous post, this quarter we are focused on Stanford based prototypes, including a spring course at the d.school. The course is split between two design projects (henceforth referred to as DP1 and DP2), the first working with a civil society leader in Sierra Leone and the second working with the city…
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There Goes Pig Farmer Pete Langley!
In the d.school this quarter we are using the principles of design thinking to explore what makes superfans so passionate about their heroes. Our field of study includes the fans of the Dale Earnhardt Sr, Michael Jordan and Stephen Colbert, with those learnings culminating in design principles and prototypes that will help a young athlete…
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Framing a Design Challenge for a Systemic Issue
One of the big questions we have been asking since starting our work is, “Which questions are amenable to design thinking and which are not, and why?” We wondered if certain types of governance problems are best addressed with alternative methods of problem solving, or how we should use the tools of design thinking differently…
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Hey, Edu*Innovators! Apply for the d.fellowships
We’re now accepting applications for our d.fellowship program during the academic year 2013-14. The focus of the application process this year is to identify and select outstanding Edu*Innovators who will work with our d.K12 Lab Network. We’re looking for mid-career professionals and entrepreneurs with the passion and drive to make real change in education. If…
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Tackling Praedial Larceny in Jamaica
Throughout our time thinking through the Governance Collaboratory, there is one question that has loomed perhaps above all others: how should we think about supporting innovation from inside government as compared to working with activists advocating change from the outside? We have scoped governance (i.e. our “problem space”) to include challenges that both sets of…
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