Week 2

Today, we began by watching a video on YouTube called IDEO Shopping Cart Challenge. This was a very interesting video as it showed how professional innovators work on a challenge. There were many positive and intruging aspects of the video which I found such as the fact that they are a mixed group with very different backgrounds, they do careful research to understand their challenge even under time constraints, they focus on their topic and add to a growing common pool of knowledge, build prototypes to show their ideas and always see the good points of everyones work, they never criticise. Often this can be challenging to see the good points in people's work as it requires a shift of mindframe.

My Group's ideas on Innovation & Welfare

After Lilian's lecture we were divided into groups of 4 and we had to make a concept map about "Innovation and social welfare". I think making a concept map is a good idea as it helps you visually explore and record yours and your own ideas. From this it helped me answer two of the questions;

What is innovation in a welfare perspective?
Innovation can be used in a welfare perspective to improve the quality of life of others in many developing countries, deal with social and economic issues, solve problems and can bring about cultural change. This can be done through developing or improving healthcare, agriculture, education, business, technology, water, affordable housing and food supply, for example creating a water pump in a village in Uganda to provide clean drinking water for the community.

The western society must realise they have a social responsibility to help others but must be aware of the difference between helping people in relation to their wants and needs. People's needs should override their wants, however the media can easily blur the lines between these giving people a false impression of what they really need.

My group collecting ideas

With regard to design thinkers they should not be afraid to take risks as innovation in relation to social welfare can reap large profits, although the risk can be very great if you do not fully understand the people and context you are working on. Therefore it is important to gain information directly the consumers to understand the problems they face and how you can best help them but also be empathic to the people they are trying to help.



Indeed, there is a triad of things design thinkers need to take into account when using innovation within a welfare perspective, these include; desirability (with regard to a human perspective), viability (with regard to a business perspective) and feasibility (with regard to a technical perspective).

Overall, innovation within a welfare perspective can be very profitable which is why many design thinkers are switching to work in these contexts. Before this class, I thought that innovation would only be within the contexts of business or education but I realise that it can also be used within the welfare context to make meaningful and real differences to peoples lives and that is something which I find very inspiring and encouraing!