Design Thinking & Entreprenuership

Welcome to HKUST

Professor Jack Lau

Fall 2022

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Course Outline:

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In this course, you will learn the latest methodology called Design Thinking for product launch and review. Here, we call this "DeThink: We will go through the concept of Design Thinking in a practical, fun and interactive manner. We will use a variety of tools to practice design thinking. We will also use some easy to use, yet power software tools to launch prototypes. Areas we will touch upon ranges from using artificial intelligence for brainstorming and even building business plan to connecting different technology eco-systems with ease. Yet, all these are done within the DeThink framework. In the first part of the course, we will focus on the DeThink process. In the later part of the course, we will focus on entrepreneurship. Finally, we will create a project to tie all the concepts together. At various sections of the course, we will invite seasoned speaker to share with you their views and experiences on relevant topics. Speakers are from both local Hong Kong, California, and the Mainland.

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Grades:

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Grades are assigned based on primarily class participation and the final project.

 

• 30%: Homework Assignment

• 40% Class Participation

• 30%: Final Project

 

Class Schedule (Tentative)

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Lecture 1: Introduction

• Group Formation

• First Design Thinking Experiment

• Take Away

• Assignment: Use A.I. to generate a new face and manually generate a personality

• Bonus: Generate a A.I. video of this new person as well

 

Lecture 2: The Importance of Personas; Traditional Product Launch Campaign: 4P, 4C

• A taste of traditional go to market approach vs. DeThink Process

• Case Studies

 

Lecture 3: MindMap; Traditional Product Launch: 7P

 

Lecture 4: Empathize: Persona, Journey Map, 5 Why's, P.E.S.T.E.L analysis

 

Lecture 5: Define

• Case Studies: Bill Gates' Africa project, Airport Check-In

 

Lecture 6: Ideate

• Assignment: Final Project Proposal (1 page) submission (per group)

 

Lecture 7: Prototype and Test

 

Lecture 8: Summary and Guest Speakers

 

Lecture 9: Entrepreneurship means more than startups. Even if you work for an established organization, you will find yourself in a situation where you will need to organize a team, launch an initiative and be responsible.

 

Lecture 10: Usual pitfalls in starting up; Roadmap to Success

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Lecture 11: Project Presentation

 

Lecture 12: Project Presentation