HSUHK Innovation Project Competition 2024: InnoXplore Thursday – Design Thinking: The Gateway to Innovative Entrepreneurship (29 February 2024)

February 29, the leap day in 2024, was the day our HSUHK students literally took a leap in their creative potential. Led by Mr Cyron Chan, Executive Director of MakerBay Foundation, nearly 30 students had a joyful and powerful dialogue on human-centred innovation. As part of the HSUHK Innovative Project Competition 2024 (Theme FinTech x ChatGPT), the “Design Thinking: The Gateway to Innovative Entrepreneurship” workshop took this concept to new heights where our students could get to understand and practise Cyron’s design thinking principles: empathy. One must first deeply understand the experiences and challenges of others, Cyron stressed, to design solutions that resonate. 

In an interactive exercise, students were paired up to share their personal challenges encountered during the day. They also needed to brainstorm solutions that addressed each other’s challenges, focusing on designing with the user’s needs at the forefront—a true application of empathetic design thinking. 

As the workshop drew to a close, the participants carried with them the creative potential and the empathetic mindset to apply design thinking principles to their academics, projects, and life in general. 

This workshop also marked the final chapter in the InnoXplore series where a total of 6 talks, seminars and workshops were tailored to equip our HSUHK students with the tools and mindset to innovate and inspire. Now the agents of change are all ready to embark on another exciting chapter—their “FinTech x ChatGPT” proposal and the upcoming pitching competition dated 21 March.