design lab ibm

IBM Design Thinking Workshop at The Design Lab

IBM Design Thinking Workshop at The Design Lab

IBM Design Thinking Workshop at The Design Lab

IBM believes in design thinking. And design doing. So much so that throughout the company, teams can leverage IBM Design Thinking for better ideas and happier users. The Design Lab is all about design doing, so last month, IBM visited campus to facilitate a workshop for UCSD students.  

Students gained insights around current IBM practices and how design plays a core role in the global giant’s business and approach and practices.  Additionally, students had the opportunity to translate tose insights into better ways to engage with prospective employers for their future careers.

“It was a useful experience getting to meet the IBM design team,” said Elmer Barrera, current President of Design at UCSD. “I learned a lot about their company culture and how they’re using design to push for innovation in the way they think, which in turn translates into the products they build. I enjoyed the journey mapping activity, which we did to identify pain points in a person’s job search.”

Understanding users through empathy and observation and taking a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving were key design thinking principles covered by IBM. Part of the workshop required students to collaborate in small teams to create an “as-is scenario,” often referred to as a user journey map. Students crafted need statements for undergraduate and graduate student personas

Tori Duong, Class of 2018, said, “I loved being able to hear about what design means to them and how they tackle the design process in their company. My favorite parts were definitely the ones where they had us think of problems and solutions, whether it be through sketching on our post-it notes or collaborating with each other on the journey maps. I was extremely grateful they took the time to answer our questions. It gave me a lot of insight on what I should work towards as I think about starting my career in industry.”

Ed Ngai, a UCSD graduate and former President of Design at UCSD said, “The workshop offered great insight into IBM’s design process and company culture. It was exciting to hear how a well-established, 100+ year old, company is using design to redefine its products and values. It was also a great opportunity to learn about what IBM looks for in potential candidates and how organizations like Design at UCSD can help students land jobs. Hearing from various designers and managers offered a lot of insights into IBM’s vision and how design plays a key role in achieving it.”

IBM will be returning in this Fall for a more in-depth workshop and recruiting event.  IBM is also a principle partner in the Design Lab’s Center for Design Driven Transformation, a joint project with Rady School of Management focused on the intersection of design and business.

IBM believes in design thinking. And design doing. So much so that throughout the company, teams can leverage IBM Design Thinking for better ideas and happier users. The Design Lab is all about design doing, so last month, IBM visited campus to facilitate a workshop for UCSD students.  

Students gained insights around current IBM practices and how design plays a core role in the global giant’s business and approach and practices.  Additionally, students had the opportunity to translate tose insights into better ways to engage with prospective employers for their future careers.

“It was a useful experience getting to meet the IBM design team,” said Elmer Barrera, current President of Design at UCSD. “I learned a lot about their company culture and how they’re using design to push for innovation in the way they think, which in turn translates into the products they build. I enjoyed the journey mapping activity, which we did to identify pain points in a person’s job search.”

Understanding users through empathy and observation and taking a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving were key design thinking principles covered by IBM. Part of the workshop required students to collaborate in small teams to create an “as-is scenario,” often referred to as a user journey map. Students crafted need statements for undergraduate and graduate student personas

Tori Duong, Class of 2018, said, “I loved being able to hear about what design means to them and how they tackle the design process in their company. My favorite parts were definitely the ones where they had us think of problems and solutions, whether it be through sketching on our post-it notes or collaborating with each other on the journey maps. I was extremely grateful they took the time to answer our questions. It gave me a lot of insight on what I should work towards as I think about starting my career in industry.”

Ed Ngai, a UCSD graduate and former President of Design at UCSD said, “The workshop offered great insight into IBM’s design process and company culture. It was exciting to hear how a well-established, 100+ year old, company is using design to redefine its products and values. It was also a great opportunity to learn about what IBM looks for in potential candidates and how organizations like Design at UCSD can help students land jobs. Hearing from various designers and managers offered a lot of insights into IBM’s vision and how design plays a key role in achieving it.”

IBM will be returning in this Fall for a more in-depth workshop and recruiting event.  IBM is also a principle partner in the Design Lab’s Center for Design Driven Transformation, a joint project with Rady School of Management focused on the intersection of design and business.

IBM believes in design thinking. And design doing. So much so that throughout the company, teams can leverage IBM Design Thinking for better ideas and happier users. The Design Lab is all about design doing, so last month, IBM visited campus to facilitate a workshop for UCSD students.  

Students gained insights around current IBM practices and how design plays a core role in the global giant’s business and approach and practices.  Additionally, students had the opportunity to translate tose insights into better ways to engage with prospective employers for their future careers.

“It was a useful experience getting to meet the IBM design team,” said Elmer Barrera, current President of Design at UCSD. “I learned a lot about their company culture and how they’re using design to push for innovation in the way they think, which in turn translates into the products they build. I enjoyed the journey mapping activity, which we did to identify pain points in a person’s job search.”

Understanding users through empathy and observation and taking a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving were key design thinking principles covered by IBM. Part of the workshop required students to collaborate in small teams to create an “as-is scenario,” often referred to as a user journey map. Students crafted need statements for undergraduate and graduate student personas

Tori Duong, Class of 2018, said, “I loved being able to hear about what design means to them and how they tackle the design process in their company. My favorite parts were definitely the ones where they had us think of problems and solutions, whether it be through sketching on our post-it notes or collaborating with each other on the journey maps. I was extremely grateful they took the time to answer our questions. It gave me a lot of insight on what I should work towards as I think about starting my career in industry.”

Ed Ngai, a UCSD graduate and former President of Design at UCSD said, “The workshop offered great insight into IBM’s design process and company culture. It was exciting to hear how a well-established, 100+ year old, company is using design to redefine its products and values. It was also a great opportunity to learn about what IBM looks for in potential candidates and how organizations like Design at UCSD can help students land jobs. Hearing from various designers and managers offered a lot of insights into IBM’s vision and how design plays a key role in achieving it.”

IBM will be returning in this Fall for a more in-depth workshop and recruiting event.  IBM is also a principle partner in the Design Lab’s Center for Design Driven Transformation, a joint project with Rady School of Management focused on the intersection of design and business.

Read Next

Design Lab John Torous Healthcare App

Studio Session with John Torous – Engagement as #1 Barrier to Health Apps

Design Lab Studio Session: Engagement as #1 Barrier for Health Apps: The Urgent Need for…

Design Lab Cat Hicks Signalio

Cat Hicks Q&A: A Conversation about Google & her new start-up Signal IO

The Design Lab has long lasting impacts. Catherine Hicks has seen the Design Lab since its…

Mai Nguyen

Meet Mai Nguyen, UC San Diego New Director of the Design Lab

Mai Nguyen began her role as Director of The Design Lab in March of this year, but she will be making the move from her long-time home of Chapel Hill, North Carolina to San Diego this summer. Her excitement beams because, having grown up in Orange and Riverside counties, she considers herself a native Californian. “For me, this is coming home to a place that I’m very familiar with; a place that I saw grow and develop and become what it is today.” It is precisely witnessing the development of these regions over time that inspired her to pursue her graduate studies in sociology and urban planning . “I watched the Southern California landscape get dotted by more and more development and traffic--where sprawl met the wall. I also saw the lack of foresight and  planning—our policies, our practices, our design of space really created so many other problems because we didn’t think about the long-term consequences of our growth and development. So I come back to The Design Lab with that background.”
Albert Lin National Geographic

Design Lab member Albert Lin hosted 3 National Geographic series, using technology to uncover lost cities, treasures, and secrets

Full length episodes available for streaming on the Disney+ app.

Lost Cities With Albert Lin: “Lost Cities brings adventure, science, and archaeology together through our host Albert Lin. Our ambitious approach applies 3D scanning to some of the most extraordinary sites of antiquity."

Lost Treasures Of The Maya: “National Geographic Explorer Albert Lin ventures into the Guatemalan jungle to explore how a new high-tech treasure map is revealing tens of thousands of ancient ruins.”

Buried Secrets of The Bible With Albert Lin: “Albert Lin seeks out the truth behind two great stories of the Bible. To solve these mysteries, Albert will use satellites and space-age technology to look beneath the earth’s surface to reveal secrets that have been buried for thousands of years.”
Olga McConnell

Olga McConnell, Project Specialist and Executive Assistant to the Director of The Design Lab

As the Executive Assistant to the Director of The Design Lab, a project manager for the Lab’s special projects and annual events, and a lifelong learner who holds a M.A. in English Linguistics and Translation, and a M.B.A. in Business Administration and Management, Olga McConnell’s zest for knowledge is palpable. She is currently on track to complete a Project Management Certification at UC San Diego Extension at the end of 2021, and she is planning on obtaining her Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification after that. “I’m kind of addicted to getting degrees,” jokes McConnell. “I even thought the other day, maybe I’ll go to law school. And then I was like, no, enough, enough.” 

For nearly five years, McConnell was Executive Assistant to Don Norman, the Founding Director Emeritus of The Design Lab. She is now the Executive Assistant to the new Director of The Design Lab, Mai Thi Nguyen. It is Nguyen’s vision of human-technology-community interactions, along with her JEDI (justice, diversity, equity and inclusion) approach that has McConnell excited about this new chapter in the Lab’s legacy, saying, “I see how great she is as an efficient leader, so I’m really looking forward to working with her, supporting her administratively, as well as taking charge of certain projects that she has in mind.”

Frontier Design Prize Announces Winners at World Design Cities Conference

Shanghai, September 15, 2022 | The Frontier Design Prize announced the winners of its inaugural edition during the opening ceremony of the World Design Cities Conference (WDCC).  Mr. QU Xing, Deputy Director-General of UNESCO, Mr. GONG Zheng, Mayor of Shanghai, Ms. XU Xiaolan, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology (China), along with leading designers, scholars and industry leaders, attended the award ceremony. The Frontier Design Prize (FDP) is a visionary, innovative, world-class design award established with the aims of encouraging design innovation, enhancing the impact of design in driving industrial transformation, and promoting the role of design in shaping a better world. A central program of WDCC, it is undertaken by Design Innovation Institute Shanghai (DIIS) with guidance from the Shanghai Municipal Government. 
Back To Top