Impact Week is a mentoring program focused on fostering entrepreneurship through design thinking. During two editions in 2018 and 2019 as a Senior Design Thinking Coach I led two-week program for academic tutors and their students. The program focused on applying the design thinking process to create innovative solutions in women’s safety (Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies in Delhi, 2018) and education areas (University of Lagos, 2019).
In the first week, I guided the academic tutors through the design thinking methodology to become junior design thinking coaches. The 4 day course aimed at learning by doing - we looked at needs and opportunities for reshaping educational programs at the two universities in preparation for the intensive course with students.

In the actual Impact Week, with the help of junior coaches, I assisted teams of students in developing business ideas for social impact. The workshops focused on identifying community issues through direct and personal engagement: we ventured out into the city to talk to residents and understand the scope of the problem. I assisted the students in planning and running research and analyzis to unpack the complexities of the social issues, and framing the problem around the challenges of a specific target group.

We developed a number of concept and quick prototypes for guerrilla testing before landing on a final idea. From there, we worked on defining the business concept and outlining the implementation roadmap. As the impact week ended with pitching to the potential investors, I assisted teams through creating pitch decks and compelling storytelling around the problem and the solution.