At the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford — aka “the d.school” — graduate students, professionals and academics from across disciplines come together to learn and apply design thinking to complex challenges facing people around the world.
This year, the d.school launched a creative leadership accelerator for early- and mid-career professionals who are restless experts with a challenge they’re passionate about and the savvy to make it real. Our d.fellows participate in an immersive, 10-month experience to develop and launch their own initiative using the resources of the d.school, Stanford and the Silicon Valley community.
The d.fellows program provides the platform to learn and strengthen design thinking skills and creative confidence, mixed with active periods in the field to experiment with project prototypes. The program equips d.fellows to go back into the world with the vision and skills to reframe challenges, and the momentum they need to spark new ways of working.
Here’s the format:
Fall Quarter: September 1 – December 7, 2013, (Focus on Learning & Teaching): Fellows take the d.school’s foundational “Design Thinking Bootcamp” course, participate in and lead additional workshops, and take part in fellowship events. The curriculum includes weekly seminars featuring Stanford faculty and outside experts in leadership, entrepreneurship, creativity, design, prototyping, scenario planning, ethnography and more.
Winter Quarter: Jan. 7 – March 15, 2014 (Focus on Teaching & Doing): Fellows rev through the design thinking cycle (Empathy, Define, Iterate, Prototype & Test) to sharpen their prototypes. Fellowship events continue when the fellows are not in the field.
Spring Quarter: April 1 – June 30, 2014 (Focus on Doing): Using what they’ve learned from the winter and fall, fellows refine their projects and launch them into the world.
Meet our 2012-13 d.Fellows Cohort and read about what they’re working on:
David Janka, Fellow
Project: A doctor and medical device entrepreneur, David is leveraging his experiences as a two-time teaching team member in the d.school class “Design for Extreme Affordability” to spread design thinking and creative agency to innovators in the developing world.
Matt Rothe, Fellow
Project: The FEED Collaborative aims to radically redesign our local food system through the intersection of experiential education, social entrepreneurship, and design thinking. We collaborate with thought-leading organizations in the local food system to identify fundamental needs for change. We then curate opportunities for both students and our community partners to learn and apply design thinking in the pursuit of innovative and scalable solutions for those needs.
Nadia Roumani, Fellow
Project: Last year, Nadia was a project partner for the foundational d.school course, “Design Thinking Bootcamp: Experiences in Innovation and Design,” where she challenged Stanford students to redesign the American-Muslim philanthropic experience, post-9/11. Nadia will continue that work as a d.Fellow, where she’ll use design thinking to develop collaborative, creative networks to unlock talent and resources within philanthropy, and within largely underrepresented communities in America.
Jenny Stefanotti, Fellow
Project: Jenny is currently a fellow at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, where she applies design thinking to her work at the intersection of technology and international development. She is co-founder of the Governance Collaboratory, a Stanford-based program which supports civil society activists and government reformers to develop innovations that make government more efficient, empower people to have a say in how they are governed, and hold those in power accountable for what they deliver.
Justin Ferrell, Fellowships Director
Justin recently joined the d.school as its first director of fellowships, an immersive new leadership accelerator for mid-career innovators with the potential to shift their professions. A career journalist specializing in organizational behavior and change, Justin worked for the last seven years for The Washington Post, most recently as the director of digital, mobile & new product design. He brought mobile designers and programmers into The Post newsroom, and enabled collaborative teams of reporters, editors, designers and developers to create groundbreaking work. Also a prolific visual storyteller, Justin’s designed several award-winning projects — including the investigative series “Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency,” winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. He’s spoken on creative culture in many venues, from the SXSW Interactive festival in Austin to Education City in Doha, Qatar, and is an alum of the John S. Knight journalism fellowships at Stanford. Justin couldn’t be more thrilled to join the d.school and its glorious alchemy of human-centered designers. Read full bio
Tammy Goodall, d.Fellows Program Ninja
Tammy’s eyes light up at the mere mention of adventure, whether that means embarking on a three-year, two-person sailing voyage from Seattle to Thailand (ask her about the pirates); riding her motorcycle to Alaska and back; or the quiet discovery she finds in carving wood. She seeks challenges wherever she is, and the d.school is no exception.
A versatile player, Tammy brings a holistic, down-to-earth style and corporate experience to her role as program ninja of the d.school fellowships. In addition to helping launch workshops, teach and execute events, you can also find Tammy at the nerve center of the d.school, where she navigates staff, faculty and visitors through day-to-day activities.
Tammy’s ecstatic about being able to collaborate with such like-minded people. “This is absolutely, positively the best place I’ve ever worked,” she says. “Every day I’m amazed at the people and I get to experience and collaborate with.”