The DSIL Course is the Beginning
Alumni take new mindsets and skills forward into their work
Percentage comfortable using design thinking in the workplace after the Course
Percentage comfortable teaching design thinking to their team after the Course
Percentage reporting significant pivotal change in mindsets during the Course
Top Three Things 130 Alumni Stated They Took Away After Completing the DSIL Course
- Practical hands-on experience employing innovation.
- Global networks of support & inspiration to guide continued growth for their companies.
- Important insight about themselves in order to become stronger leaders for their teams and in their personal life.
"DSIL provided me with connections to a global network and an enhanced skill set around design thinking and program innovation that is manifesting in my team at SEED SPOT's expansion efforts.
My company SEED SPOT supports early-stage entrepreneurs launch ventures that improve the world. With a focus on diversity and inclusion, SEED SPOT has become globally ranked as a top 20 Accelerator in the World and won an Emmy in 2016 for their partnership with Univision supporting Latino entrepreneurs. SEED SPOT just opened a second location in Washington, D.C. and is scaling their high school program nationally to serve young entrepreneurs." -Courtney
Seed spot is known as one of the "Top 20 accelerators in the World" by Gust and Top 3 social impact incubators in the United States by UBI Global and Cisco. Forbes, USA Today, Huffington Post and others have profiled Courtney for her work and over 400 Media stories have been written about seed spot.
Bringing Skills to Design A New Culture at Work
After the DSIL Course, Cate Johnson took what she learned into United Way Corporate and launched an Innovation Lab tasked with attracting new sources of funding. She has since been leading ‘design sprints’ with internal teams focused on increasing revenue and number of donors, as well as incorporating gratitude and recognition of staff in their office. In 2017, her focus on the Innovation Lab shifted staff culture in the following ways: increasing empathy and user-focus, integrating a ‘yes, and’ mindset into meetings, and offering tools to solve old problems in new ways. Cate notes that the team at United Way, including herself, feel less stuck, less siloed, and more connected to a process designed to generate new possibilities. Cate credits the DSIL Course with helping her cultivate these skills.
"I have taken my learnings from DSIL forward, specifically around how to build high yielding business models for impact. I introduce large enterprises to the innovative approaches I saw on the ground at DSIL as inspiration for their future strategies that bring people into the design - like DSIL brought me in!"
"It's the people that really helped me grow at DSIL."
After the Course, Pri was asked to give a TEDx Talk on her passion subject of 'Future, Jobs, Revolution' and she rocked it! Check it out below!
" I was able to handle any challenge, no matter how complex because I understood the power of listening to data and people in new ways. "
"After the course, I tackled a big project! Transparency International and the World Wide Web Foundation have jointly launched a study on how well corruption was being tackled in G20 countries by using open data (and innovation brought by such). There was a sample of five G20 countries which were analyzed and I was responsible for Brazil! I was able to better listen to the data and understand the important differences that lead to innovation for big systems."
More info here: New research on open data and anti-corruption released