The Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government, the first research and education institution specialising in public policy in the Arab world, is organising two sessions of the Design Thinking Lab on February 25 and 27 at City Walk Dubai, to mark UAE Innovation Month 2018, which bears the slogan “Innovation Starts with You”.

The interactive lab was attended by several innovative teams from both the government and private sectors. The practice-based workshop aims to provide organisational teams with tried-and-tested tools, plans and techniques, in order to help them think creatively about their product and service offerings, all the while espousing a customer-centred perspective. The workshop will focus on a number of key aspects of design thinking that address the needs and concerns of actual users, propose creative solutions to problems, and experiment with various prototypes for visualising possible solutions.

MBRSG’s Executive President His Excellency Dr Ali Sebaa Al Marri said: “Guided by the forward-thinking directives of its leadership, the UAE has established itself as a regional and global role model in embracing innovation to elevate government services and achieve excellence, ranking first in the Arab region and 35th in the world on the Global Innovation Index 2017. The Design Thinking Lab, developed by our own students and professors, underlines the importance of innovation in achieving competitiveness, improving performance, and upgrading public services.”

The scalable and adaptable tools used in the workshop enable teams to design innovative concepts, put forth a value proposition with clear financial benefits, and get the best idea out into the market promptly. The emphasis is placed on securing the right balance between several design thinking imperatives in order to identify solutions that are not only socially desirable, but also technologically feasible, economically viable, and sustainable over time. Drawing upon a set of interactive and experiential exercises, this workshop immerses participants in a virtual world that acknowledges the material, intellectual and emotional interconnectedness that exists between people, objects and spaces.

The three-hour design thinking twin workshops is conceived and delivered by students and faculty members of MBRSG’s Innovation Management Master’s programme. The topics discussed during the three-hour workshop covered design thinking and innovation processes; interactivity and emotional experiences of users; models for exploring the problem space; prototyping for exploring the solution space; and balancing discovery and delivery skills.