Partnership opportunities

The project partnership in an 8-week project is particularly suitable for getting to know Design Thinking as well as the work and learning culture at the HPI D-School. For this project we are looking for design challenges of low or medium complexity. For Basic Track projects we are especially happy to work with companies and organizations from the Berlin-Brandenburg region.

Within the 8-week project, two multidisciplinary student teams per partner organization develop innovative, human-centered solutions in the form of concept ideas and prototypes with the support of experienced Design Thinking coaches. In addition, the teams develop first approaches for implementing the ideas in your organization.

The student team present their project ideas as well as their development process at a final presentations event and in a detailed written documentation.

There are six project partner places available per semester in the Basic Track.

The project partnership in a 16-week project offers more space for more complex problems. The longer project time enables student teams to develop particularly innovative and creative solutions. This also requires a more intensive involvement of the project partner.

In the Advanced Track, our student teams can work on regional, national or international projects. A multidisciplinary team of students per partner organization develops innovative and human-centered solutions in several iteration loops with the support of experienced coaches. In this process, they create innovative concepts and prototypes. In close cooperation with the project partner, it is even possible to formulate possibilities for implementation and approaches for business designs.

At the end of the Advanced Track project, the student teams present and document their solution ideas using one or more functional prototypes. This documentation contains the findings and background that led to the development of the idea. This way, the solution approach can be experienced directly and is perfectly suited to communicate the ideas to third parties in a tangible and quick way.

Six project partner places are available per semester in the Advanced Track.

The Global Design Thinking Workshop (GDTW) is a study program designed by the HPI School of Design Thinking. The program consists of three different workshops that offer deep dives into the most important aspects of the Design Thinking approach.

We implement this as a project-based course, where participants collaborate in each workshop with a project partner organization (NPOs and NGOs, large enterprises, young start-ups, social organizations, or research institutes and universities). Together with out project partner, we develop a suitable Design Challenge for the respective topic of the workshop. The Global Design Thinking Workshop runs over the course of four weeks and consists of seven intensive workshop days, including two mandatory days for project partners.

We have for example been partnering with the Federal Association for Skilled Crafts (Zentralverband des Handwerks), Deutsche Bahn, ING Diba, Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (BDI), Interhyp and TeleskopEffekt to develop innovations, ideas and solutions.