Leiden 2016

5th - 11th November 2016

Design Thinking Project

In the week from 5 till 11 November 2016 the first exchange in the Talent Education took place in Leiden. In total 64 students from Brno, Leiden, Ljubljana and Pilsen have discovered the method of Design Thinking. Divided into 8 groups (topics) they are set to work under the guidance of an expert and a DT Coach with the methodology. 

The 64 students were divided into 8 topics. From each city 2 students signed up for a specific subject.

The 8 topics were:

  • Biodiversity
  • Medical Research
  • Ethnology
  • Physics
  • Astronomy
  • Science
  • Medical Research & Statistics
  • Political Science

Each topic had an expert in that particular area. The experts involved during the exchange week in Leiden were: Marco Roos, Beerend Hierck, Vincent Icke, Maria Spirova, Jelmer Wagenaar, Michiel Hogerheijde, Esther van Zuthpen/Floor Scholte and Hein Putter. 

The goal of the week was to have, working with Design Thinking, a final product. The final product could be either a physical product or a research question. A few final products which have emerged:

  • Medical Research: 
    • How might we persuade Vietnamese minority in Czech republic to donate bone marrow to cure people?
    • How might we compensate for loss-of-function in Parkinson’s disease using stem cells technology?
    • Is a heart damage treatment through reprogramming scar tissue inside a living human body back to functioning cardiomyocites feasible?
  • Ethnology:
    • ‘’How can we help homosexuals to come out and find their identity?’’.
  • Medical Research & Statistics:  
    • ‘’People with (potentially) high likelihood of having a defective genes (BRCA1 and BRCA2), need a way to know whether or not they should get expensive test done. The final product/service should be a web page with calculation(s) of conditional probability for having cancer(s)’’.

In march 2017 the next exchange for the 16/17 year old students will take place in Brno (Czech Republic). In the meantime the students will work further on their ideas. In Brno they will exchange ideas and experiences with their foreign students, prepare their presentations and present their final product.