International certificate course starts with design thinking workshop in Kenya

20 students from South Eastern Kenya University (SEKU) attended the certificate course, which is offered jointly by SEKU and HSWT as part of the DAAD project "Applied Sciences for Life - Internationalising Best Practices". In addition to the students, four team leaders from Welthungerhilfe and its partner organisations also took part in the Design Thinking Workshop and contributed interesting questions from their practical experience.

The tasks set by Welthungerhilfe provided a real-life context in which the participants could directly apply their newly acquired skills to develop creative solutions. They were accompanied by design thinking expert Tobias Greissing and his co-moderators Marlies Resch and Hanno Koßmann. The students, most of whom had no previous experience of design thinking, were enthusiastic about the method. The collaboration between students and team leaders from different cultural backgrounds created an atmosphere of mutual understanding and respect in which innovative ideas for the food and Agriculture sectors were developed together, resulting in concrete start-up ideas.

A tip from Hanno Koßmann, HSWT coordinator in the DAAD project: "Teachers should be inspired by the innovative method, because design thinking offers enormous potential to inspire young people for sustainable development and to enable them to independently develop solutions for global challenges. HSWT is also planning to use similar concepts in its Master's courses in future and thus further develop its teaching.

The online certificate course will continue from October to January and has been opened up to students from other partner universities of HSWT. This semester, 70 students from SEKU and JOOUST in Kenya and KKU in Thailand as well as some staff from Welthungerhilfe are taking part in the course. Supported by a team of lecturers from SEKU and HSWT, the participants can learn practical and theoretical content on innovations in the food and agriculture sector. In the new year, the certificate course will conclude with an introduction to setting up a business. This should encourage participants to put their ideas into practice in their own company.

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