The Design Thinking course was rolled out in a workshop mode for the participants of PGDM 2015-2017. The 4-day session ended on Thursday (January 14, 2015) with the groups presenting prototypes and pitching their ideas, based on which they were evaluated. 
The course is taught by 7 faculty members including the Dean Dr. Ranjan Banerjee and lead faculty, Dr. Suranjan Das. The Design Thinking approach pushed the students to come up with creative, viable solutions for issues that they felt needed to be addressed. In the end, using tools like building blocks, clay, straws they came up with prototypes for their ideas.
The course is taught by 7 faculty members including the Dean Dr. Ranjan Banerjee and lead faculty, Dr. Suranjan Das. The Design Thinking approach pushed the students to come up with creative, viable solutions for issues that they felt needed to be addressed. In the end, using tools like building blocks, clay, straws they came up with prototypes for their ideas.
Said Dr. Banerjee, "We aim to make Design Thinking a part of all our programmes. Above that, we want to make it a way of working at SPJIMR." Dr. Suranjan Das said, "Design Thinking does not only give you the edge in a corporate world, but positively impacts all aspects of life, personal and professional."
The impact of the course was summed up by Siddhanth Mathur, PGDM participant, who said, "Until now, what we were taught assumed that we were thinking correctly. This course has been disruptive in the sense that for the first time, the very way we think in was questioned."
SOME OF THE IDEAS BY OUR STUDENTS:
1) #Doc-ConnectAtSPJIMR
Our idea, Doc-Connect aims at providing 24X7 health care services on campus. Many of us SPJIMR residents are in need of urgent medical help and lack personal commute facility. Targeting this, our model is based on the idea of bringing hospital to the patient instead of patient going to hospital.
We plan to provide fastest response time to a patient by making an app for healthcare services including e-pharmacy, and by aggregating nearby hospitals, clinics and pharmacies on board. This will ensure that a student receives proper medical treatment without having to go around in the city while he is sick.
2) The biometric cashless and secured ecosystem in SPJIMR
3) iLearn ('i' stands for Interactive Learning)
During a lecture, if a student is not able to understand a specific topic all he has to do is press the "OMG!" button on the leaning monitorplaced in front of each student. Professors will be holding a class monitor device which have a feedback meter that will show the number of students pressing the OMG button in real time. If professors realise that a specific topic got more than 50% students OMG button press, then they can moderate the lecture accordingly. Also, overtime when the data will be collected for each subject, it can be analysed as to which topic needs more time allocation in the course for better understanding of the course.
Additional features:
Class Monitor: Buttons for
1. Presentation Mode: Which indicates professors want to project something or may be play a video and hence, projector screen will come down and front lights will go off avoiding the current hassle of looking for right switches.
2) The biometric cashless and secured ecosystem in SPJIMR
3) iLearn ('i' stands for Interactive Learning)
How does the faculty know that students are able to understand the concepts? How can students communicated that they would like the professors to revisit the topic without disturbing the class flow?
We present to you our solution iLearn.. Promoting Interactive Learning. The solution comprises of two products: Class Monitor for theprofessors and Learning Monitor for the students.
2. Normal Mode:When the room is normally lit for regular way of delivery of lecture.
3. Slide Changer: This device will be used for slide changing as well
Learning Monitor:
1. Biometrics: For capturing student's attendance along with timestamp.
2. Ask Me button: For correct capturing of class participation. Once a student's question or response was entertained by the professor, he will press this button. So professors will have the roll nos of all the students who interacted in class for appropriate distribution of class participation marks.
4) INTELILIGHT
Our idea was to develop an intelligent and smart lighting system which could be used in common areas like B29, Group Work Rooms and Lake side. It was built on the concept of image processing by leveraging the cctv cameras available in our campus ! The advantage of our model is that it can easily be implemented in the existing lighting system by using certain add-ons. Let us take a step towards sustainable future- 'Go Green, Get Green'
There were many such breakthrough ideas generated out of this session. To look at all of them, click here.